A dark and dreary medieval world. Lots of obtuse and cliched references to dark forces and evil people doing predictably evil things. Slow melee combat with a focus on stamina management. Shrines that become spawn points when you die. Enemies that revive every time you’re resurrected. Sound familiar yet? Developer RuneHeads isn’t hiding just how much FromSoftware’s Souls’ series has influenced almost every facet of its dungeon-crawling title, but there's a fine line between paying tribute and pastiche, and too often Fall of Light: Darkest Edition stumbles into the clutches of the latter.
Thing is, if you’re going to be as bold as to imitate such an acclaimed milestone in modern game design, you need to at least do it well. At least then you’re a ‘soulless’ rip-off rather than a cheap knock-off. But it doesn’t take long for Fall of Light’s inherent problems to emerge. In the role of Nyx - an ageing knight who needs to lead his daughter Aether through a perilous set of dungeons in order to reach the safety of some sunlight at the other end - you’ll need to protect your charge and ensure the various minions you encounter don’t snatch her.
Two-man Italian developer RuneHeads has used Ico as its other big inspiration, but much like the attempt to ape the solid systems of Souls, this indie title fails to capture what made Team Ico’s PS2 classic so evocative. The game never provides a reason to care for her from a narrative perspective, and while her presence does provide helpful buffs (such as increasing the power of your attacks) her role almost always devolves into a 12-plus-hour-long escort mission. And if you die, she dies too, but while your soul is restored at a nearby bonfire - sorry, we meant ‘shrine’ - you’ll need to backtrack to where you died in order to restore her.
A majority of your time in Fall of Light will be spent swinging various weapons at an endless parade of incredibly similar humanoid enemies, so it’s perpetually frustrating to have to do so via a completely unintuitive combat model. Nyx is apparently so old his animations are glacial, leading to painfully slow swings of your weapon (even as a light attack). A big part of the problem comes down to input lag. It simply takes too long for a button press to manifest itself as an on-screen command, and considering its entire combat system is built on the ability to dodge, block with your shield and strike, you’re either cut down because the game didn’t respond in time or because your stamina ran out too quickly.
It’s a problem that has affected the game in its other ports on console, and while we applaud the fact that RuneHeads has effectively dealt with these new versions by themselves, the fact remains you can’t ship a copy of a game built entirely around Souls-like combat and have a battle system that’s too broken to facilitate any sense of learned skill. Dark Souls and Bloodborne work because you learn their ways and earn every victory. Fall of Light relies too much on chance, with enemy hitboxes often so random that every roll and swing is a lottery at best. There are 20 stances to choose from, and 10 weapons to find and utilise, but they won’t save you from the same ghoulish issues.
It should also be said that the difference in visual fidelity between the iteration on Nintendo Switch and every other version is gargantuan. Whether you’re playing on PS4 or PC, candles glitter in graveyards and glowing mini-bosses bristle menacingly like embers, but on Switch, everything just looks so dim and dull. There’s a huge amount of blurring, even on on-screen text, and it makes what is already a dark game even more difficult to navigate. These visual sacrifices wouldn’t sting quite so much if they’d been made in order to facilitate a sharp and accurate combat system, but alas, it’s a one-two punch of technical and mechanical problems.
The Darkest Edition does come with a new dungeon filled with a handful of fresh enemies designed for console versions of the game, but considering you’ll need to use the same means of fighting and view them through the same cracked prism as everything else on Switch, their inclusion holds very little attraction overall. The fact Nyx’s attributes don’t level or improve as you progress kind of just sums up the whole experience.
Conclusion
Fall of Light: Darkest Edition should have been the best way to stalk dungeons and experience Souls-like combat before Dark Souls: Remastered Edition finally restores its humanity on Nintendo Switch, but it’s a destiny that’s never claimed. The poor voice acting will make you cringe, the broken combat will make you rage and the visual compromises will likely make you put your console away and have a well-earned lie-down.
Comments (29)
That title tough
Is this a first on the site?
Cringe, rage, nap...Sounds like the beginning, middle and end of my average work day.
@SuperCharlie78 It's a new direction we're taking with review titles.
@JHDK Now that is too true. Welp, here comes my nap phase.
@Damo I belive that critical reviews are far more fun to read. Not that you should stop making positive reviews, but thats just my opinion. Thank you for reading.
Dang it, I was looking forward to Fall of Light: Darkest Edition - A Shambling Dark Souls Wannabe You'll Want To Avoid.
@Camel-Bird Not all of these titles will be critical - if a game is good, it will get a more positive suffix, obviously! We're just looking at ways of making our review titles stand out better, and giving the reader an idea of the content.
This looks like a fun game.
@Damo I thought the tagline was enough for this purpose.
Please rethink this move
@Damo @SuperCharlie78 have to agree with SuperCharlie - the suffix sort of renders the tagline redundant. Just looks messy and unprofessional to me, the tagline alone sufficed
I feel like this review taught me more about other games than it did the title being reviewed. I get that's it's easy to compare to other games but I wish this game would have been reviewed on its own merits and left the reader with a comprehensive idea of the games mechanics, shortcomings and what the game does well, not just a bunch of talk on how dark souls does it better....even in the title. I guess I expect more from Nintendolife. At least I used to
@Damo @SuperCharlie78 @MajorasLapdog I think unprofessional is a bit much, but do think that it looks a little cluttered (especially on mobile) and agree it makes the tagline redundant.
Appreciate the effort being made to update the site though.
@Tops Yeah. This site, which I've followed dayly for an awful lot of years, used to review every game with great respect, even the RCMADIAX ones.
Today we read in the very title that we should avoid a game.
@Damo please, please reconsider this one. Or just tell us the real reason why you're doing something so questionable.
@Damo I think it's great, nice GOT reference, got me to click and read anyway!
This is a good reviwe. Gotta call garbage games garbage.
@Damo hey, I like it that you’re trying to shake up the site’s conventions a bit and it’s all good, but I’ll have to agree with the other posters.
I don’t think it’s “unprofessional”, I just find it a bit unnecessary and hard to read; I found the old format way comfier and light on my eyes: just “Review” and the title to make it clear what’s being reviewed, and a snappy tagline to comment on it.
I think it works wonders, don’t fix what ain’t broken 😉
Wow. From the screenshots, this looks like it could be right up my alley, and a lot of fun. I guess I'll be giving this a wide berth then.
Excellent writing style. I cannot wait to see more from you. However, although it is just one error, how you misspell “there’s a” and leave it at “there’a” is beyond me.
I don’t always read game reviews in full, but strangely, review of terrible games such as this one cures me of my short attention span....
Whelp, at least the review explained what was what besides being a Dark Souls clone, and that's good enough for me, thumbnail title be damned. There are... SO MANY games on the Switch right now. If a dev is expecting to rise to the top of a sub-genre of games, let alone be mentioned in the same league of it, then you gotta represent. Trust me, my backlog will not be saddened by not adding this game to it.
Yeah, I'm usually a sucker for anything "soulslike" and can even get through the bad ones but this is one of the few games I returned to Steam after playing for an hour or so. It's really bad.
I have to agree with all the posters above. Dumping on a game in the actual title of the review is bad form. The tagline is where you want to throw the shade.
@Dom Thanks for this review i was thinking of getting it but now i'll just pass on it and wait for dark souls
Nice review, thanks Dom.
Good review, shame about the game though; was looking forward to giving this one a go but this and a couple of other reviews have stayed my debit card. Ah well, only 2 days until Hyper Light Drifter!
Do also agree with the current consensus on the extended title, think its unnecessary and a little too much, especially when you've knocked the tag line outta the park!
I can confirm that this game is terrible, the input lag destroys the playability. I can't understand how the developers think someone could enjoy a game where you press the button and the reaction on the screen is a second later.
@Damo,
Lol, we just had the whole discussion about people only reading (and caring) about the score. Now they just read the title and know imediately wich games to skip. This way games get even a lesser fair chance!
@Henmii ...or we save people time by telling them right away if a game is good or not?
@Damo,
Yeah, sure! But I thought you guys where advocates of "give a game a proper chance" ? They don't get a proper chance if nobody reads the reviews!
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