I'm a huge fan of role playing games and had been keeping an eye on Lords of the Fallen a long time before it's release. Claiming Dark Souls as it's influences and demo videos really focusing on strategic combat it looked fantastic but I passed on it at launch due to technical issues but with patches released resolving a lot of the problems I finally tried it and i'm glad I did as it's a fantastic action RPG. In Lords of the Fallen you play the role of Harkyn, a prisoner having been released to help humans fight off an attack of monsters called Rhogar led by former god Adyr. The story is easily Lord of the Fallens weakest aspect with things only being explained as time goes on leaving people in the dark a bit at first. The thing that hurts it most is the poor voice acting from everyone from Harkyn right done to a sidequest NPC, it's hammy and phoned in, a real shame. Gameplay sees Harkyn exploring around a Citadel/Monastery where the human leader Antanas is holed up as well as in the Rhogar realm, both of which are full of enemies. Combat is excellent, you get a huge variety of weapons and armour sets to find and swap between as you choose, certain weapons are sometimes better against some enemies than others due to elemental attriubutes or attack speeds. There are no shops, though you can craft runes to equipment to adjust their stats though it's limited in scope. When attacking, if you hack in without a plan you will die. The key to almost every encounter is to take your time looking for a gap to attack and make sure to use your shield, dodge and make sure to manage your stamina bar which drains with each action. Quite a few of the normal enemies can be a challenge at times but the Lords (boss fights essentially) are definitely tougher and have some great designs, often requiring different strategies or weapons to get past them, I looked forward to each boss encounter. At the start of the game you get to choose between three classes, Cleric, Warrior and Rogue. They only actually effect two things, your starting stats (which can be sculpted towards whichever you want when you level up anyway) and magic. Each class has four spells that do various things though they are slightly similar for each class like a decoy, buff, attack etc. I'm a little torn by the magic, a lot of the spells aren't that powerful and they take a long time to cast which, especially in boss fights is more dangerous than rewarding so not worth the effort. Could have done with much more variety, I only used one spell on my first play through as the Cleric because it healed me. Visually for a fairly low budget game Lords of the Fallen is actually a lovely looking game. Artistically it's great with fantastic building architecture, statues, towers etc. I really liked the level designs as well as the multiple paths and secret areas. The character models though are another matter. Harkyn looks great, thanks to the armour design as do the enemy models but the non player characters he meets on his journey are ugly. Their hair looks almost like playstation to visuals in solid lumps, their faces are bland and emotionless and the lip synching, well it's like they just guessed. It's not the biggest game in the world, I clocked in at about 22 hours and that was with a good amount of exploring around for secret areas but I found that to be a fairly decent size and a lot of fun. If you like role playing games, especially the Souls series then this little gem could be right up your street. It's not perfect but with fun combat, plenty of equipment to find and some great boss encounters it's totally worth a look in. A sequel has already been announced in development, I will be getting that straight away this time, hopefully it's slightly bigger and refined. Recommended. + Tactical combat. + Cool bosses. + Nice variety of weapons and armour. + Lovely visuals, especially the environment design. - Poor voice acting. - Magic is so so. - NPC character models are seriously ugly.