Clunky and bad.

.

Overall I really enjoyed Lords of the Fallen. This was my first souls-like, so I can't really compare it to others, but judged on its own merits I think this game is quite good and very underrated.

The combat is just FUN. Weapons have a great sense of heft and weight, especially hammers and axes. Enemy health is reasonable, and combat rewards good timing without being overly frustrating. Every enemy has at least one tactic that it's weak against (even the tower shield guys). The boss fights are fun and not overly frustrating IF you use your head and observe their patterns instead of going all Leroy Jenkins on them.

Once you have it all figured out, running around killing stuff becomes highly enjoyable.

My main criticism is that enemies respawn whenever you reload a save or re-enter an area. I understand that it's a normal feature of souls-like games, but in general I HATE infinite respawns in modern games -- I prefer games to be more persistent. But I had fun despite that. Also, the camera can get a little wonky in *very* tight spaces, but I've played a lot of games over the decades that have wonky cameras, so I guess I've built up a tolerance to that. The only crash I encountered was when fighting the Beast boss (a common issue, apparently) but my 2nd attempt was successful.

Anyway, I'm not sure why so many people hate this game. The combat mechanics are fun, the graphics STILL look good even after 10 years, and the art design is simply fantastic.