Lords of the Fallen (iOS) Review

It is difficult to translate AAA action titles to mobile gaming. Mostly because the core systems in the games are often too complex and they are extremely reliant on magnificent visuals to give the player a jaw-dropping experience. Lords of the Fallen for iOS is a brave attempt, but it fails big time.

The game starts off with what seems to just be a tutorial. The character goes up to an enemy and a weird battle of something that feels more like quick time events than an actual action fight begins. You eventually beat the enemy, and end up facing another enemy, a quick time event battle again… Rinse and repeat. This start is extremely off-putting, but the tutorial is rarely flashy; not all games have such magnificent openings as God of War. It must get better later on, though, mustn't it?

Sadly, the answer to this question is a big no. This is it; this is the entire game. Watch a cinematic of the character going up to their opponent, perform some quick time event-styled combat, rinse and repeat. Lords of the Fallen for iOS is basically the very worst parts of the AAA action genre concentrated into one awful game experience lacking everything fans of the genre desires, save beefy monsters to slaughter.

The worst part is that all of this happens with a poor control scheme that does not feel natural at all. The biggest gripe is the fact that to dodge, one of two buttons that are placed in a poor and inconvenient position on the screen must be pressed, while to hit something, players swipe the screen. The issue is that the dodging is the most important mechanic in Lords of the Fallen, which means that it is very counterproductive to make that move the most prone to fail thanks to how easy it is to miss those virtual buttons mid-combat. It is very annoying to take hits, and even deaths are caused by this.

Not even diehard fans of Lords of the Fallen should look at this game once. It is sad to see these cheap cash grab titles that are clearly only made to capitalise on a big-name title. It is such a shame, as it has been shown that action games can be done well on the system...