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You Died: Ranking The Dark Souls Games And Their Imitators

It's incredible, really, that in seven short years the devilish Dark Souls series has spun five games from its web. Each entry is brilliant in its own distinct way but when you're treated to so much effortless quality, it's easy to take them for granted. The temptation is to nitpick, to square them off against one another, to single out subjective preferences.

7) Lords Of The Fallen

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Release date: 2014

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They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In that case, Lords of the Fallen is a love letter to FromSoftware – written in blood. Released in 2014, Lords copies the Souls formula every step of the way, but crucially, bungles the delivery. It’s simply not as satisfying to play, marred by poor framerate and cumbersome action. Where Dark Souls lives and dies by fast twitch response times, battles in Lords of the Fallen feel heavy and slow.

At its best, Dark Souls is poetry in motion. In sports terms, it’s Roger Federer on the lawn of Wimbledon; Messi under the glow of the Nou Camp; Steph Curry in perpetual liquid motion. Try as it might, Lords of the Fallen just looks downright clunky, and though it’s a like-for-like copy in spirit, in real life, it’s rather more butt-scratching, finger-sniffing Rafael Nadal than the majesty of Federer.

That’s a shame, because there’s a serviceable game here that acts as a stop gap before the final Dark Souls III DLC. If you want my advice though, you’re better off waiting for Nioh, or Deck 13’s follow up, The Surge, set for release in 2017.

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