I came after doing all From Software's Souls, expecting to find something similar. And boy was I disappointed.

Good points :

- The game is beautiful. Lighing is good, textures are good, fx are pretty and the medieval fantasy settings that most souls use, is a hit and works really well.
- The gameplay is good, the combats feels very souls-like, have patterns that are visible and easily understandable, and most ennemies are fun to fight in a 1 vs 1 situation. The bosses are cool-looking, and mostly fun to fight.
- The areas are most of the time well designed, even though i find them weirdly confusing for nothing with some shortcuts that don't serve any purposes, or optionals roads that are weirdly long for almost nothing interesting.
- The umbral dimension is a great addition to the genre, as a level design element, The fact that some areas are accessible only via some path in the umbral that unlocks a shortcut without having to go to the umbral, is a fun and great addition.

Negatives points (from a bit frustrating to the worst thing ever)

- While the umbral is great, the items hidden in it are not sufficiently visible from outside the umbral to see. There's somes big blue butterflies to hint at remnants, but for the items and paths, it's some tiny grey insect that are barely visible if you're far or if there's any fx such as rains or ashes in certains areas .... What makes it worse is that some of those paths and items are important to upgrade your healing item or the lantern.
- Some bosses attacks. I love playing heavy weapons that move slowly, so bosses that backdash to put some distances after theirs patterns are frustrating to me. And there's a lot. But it doesn't compare to the few area attack that 4 bosses in the game have, where an area follow you and you just need to run. and run. and run. For 20 to 40 seconds while dodging the boss that continue attacking you normally while the aoe chase you.
It gets ridiculous when the boss decide to spam this attack two or three times in a row
- The FX-artist is a psychopath. Most ennemies and bosses who uses spells do so much FX at times, you can't even see your character.
- While the bestiary is not that bad, the fact that most elites ennemies appear first as bosses then appears like 20 times in the following area gives a sensation of recycling and fighting the sames ennemies over and over again. Every ennemy in the last two-three area of the game is a boss you've fight previously.
- The endings. In Dark Souls and Elden Ring, you basically "unlock" endings and you can choose the one you want at the end of the game, when you trully understand the story and stuff. In LotF, if you cleanse a beacon, any of the beacon, BOOM you've locked yourself out of 2 of the 3 endings in the game, before having a chance to understand what's at stake.
- The guy whose job was to place ennemies on the map is a psychopath. It gets so ridiculous that you can be in a situation where you have to fight 3 ennemies that can be hard to fight in 1vs1 at the same time. I literally had to fight more than 15 past-bosses in a row between two bonfires. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
- The guy who decided that the map will be an open-world is a psychopath. This is the point i HATE the most in the game, because it impacts everything else. While the areas themselves are cool, the facts that there is multiple ways to go to most of them, and that most of them are accessible early on makes it really, and by that i mean REALLY confusing.
- The guy who designed the quests is a psychopath. Despite being a kind of open-world, the quests of the NPCs need you to do the areas in a specific order, and some NPCs disappear if you do some stuff. I failed almost all NPCs quest by doing the Empyrean area first. Also, an NPC that disappear if you finish the Empyrean area nerf the HPs of some of the most annoying mobs in the Empyrean, each time you talk to him, even though it is never explains. So if you do the empyrean first, he disappear and the HPs of those mobs remains real high. There's also a quest that automatically fail if, after a specific boss, you take the elevator behind this boss. The game expects you to turn around after the boss, do an hour-long area to find a NPC hidden at the end of it, go back to the beginning of the area and speak to him, AND then you can take the elevator to continue the quest.
That's some Joker-level of madness design.
There's also a quest that fails if you doesn't kill an elite enemy that spawn ONCE only aftr you've loot an item in the umbral... If you die against it, or choose to not fight it because nothing tells you that this enemy is important, you've fail the quest and the associated NPC will disappear.
- The final boss of the "normal" end is an army of adds only and need to kill 20 adds on fire while the others spams fireballs at you. It's not hard, but it's annoying AND frustrating as the final boss.
The guy who designed that is, you guessed it, a psychopath.
Honestly, up until the end, I was not sure if this review was going to be positive or negative, because despite all its problem, I enjoyed it cause the gameplay itself is good.
This boss ALONE make up my mind to put it negatively.

In summary, the studio knows how to to do a Souls. But they are all a bunch of psychopaths.
Lies of P was better

I came after doing all From Software's Souls, expecting to find something similar. And boy was I disappointed. Good points : - The game is beautiful. Lighing is good, textures are good, fx are pretty and the medieval fantasy settings that most souls use, is a hit and works really well. - The gameplay is good, the combats feels very souls-like, have patterns that are visible and easily understandable, and most ennemies are fun to fight in a [b][u]1 vs 1 situation[/u][/b]. The bosses are cool-looking, and [b][u]mostly[/u][/b] fun to fight. - The areas are most of the time well designed, even though i find them weirdly confusing for nothing with some shortcuts that don't serve any purposes, or optionals roads that are weirdly long for almost nothing interesting. - The umbral dimension is a great addition to the genre, as a level design element, The fact that some areas are accessible only via some path in the umbral that unlocks a shortcut without having to go to the umbral, is a fun and great addition. Negatives points (from a bit frustrating to the worst thing ever) - While the umbral is great, the items hidden in it are not sufficiently visible from outside the umbral to see. There's somes big blue butterflies to hint at remnants, but for the items and paths, it's some tiny grey insect that are barely visible if you're far or if there's any fx such as rains or ashes in certains areas .... What makes it worse is that some of those paths and items are important to upgrade your healing item or the lantern. - Some bosses attacks. I love playing heavy weapons that move slowly, so bosses that backdash to put some distances after theirs patterns are frustrating to me. And there's a lot. But it doesn't compare to the few area attack that 4 bosses in the game have, where an area follow you and you just need to run. and run. and run. For 20 to 40 seconds while dodging the boss that continue attacking you normally while the aoe chase you. It gets ridiculous when the boss decide to spam this attack two or three times in a row - The FX-artist is a psychopath. Most ennemies and bosses who uses spells do so much FX at times, you can't even see your character. - While the bestiary is not that bad, the fact that most elites ennemies appear first as bosses then appears like 20 times in the following area gives a sensation of recycling and fighting the sames ennemies over and over again. Every ennemy in the last two-three area of the game is a boss you've fight previously. - The endings. In Dark Souls and Elden Ring, you basically "unlock" endings and you can choose the one you want at the end of the game, when you trully understand the story and stuff. In LotF, if you cleanse a beacon, any of the beacon, BOOM you've locked yourself out of 2 of the 3 endings in the game, before having a chance to understand what's at stake. - The guy whose job was to place ennemies on the map is a psychopath. It gets so ridiculous that you can be in a situation where you have to fight 3 ennemies that can be hard to fight in 1vs1 at the same time. I literally had to fight more than 15 past-bosses in a row between two bonfires. Bullshit. - The guy who decided that the map will be an open-world is a psychopath. This is the point i HATE the most in the game, because it impacts everything else. While the areas themselves are cool, the facts that there is multiple ways to go to most of them, and that most of them are accessible early on makes it really, and by that i mean [b]REALLY[/b] confusing. - The guy who designed the quests is a psychopath. Despite being a kind of open-world, the quests of the NPCs need you to do the areas in a specific order, and some NPCs disappear if you do some stuff. I failed almost all NPCs quest by doing the Empyrean area first. Also, an NPC that disappear if you finish the Empyrean area nerf the HPs of some of the most annoying mobs in the Empyrean, each time you talk to him, even though it is never explains. So if you do the empyrean first, he disappear and the HPs of those mobs remains real high. There's also a quest that automatically fail if, after a specific boss, you take the elevator behind this boss. The game expects you to turn around after the boss, do an hour-long area to find a NPC hidden at the end of it, go back to the beginning of the area and speak to him, AND then you can take the elevator to continue the quest. That's some Joker-level of madness design. There's also a quest that fails if you doesn't kill an elite enemy that spawn ONCE only aftr you've loot an item in the umbral... If you die against it, or choose to not fight it because nothing tells you that this enemy is important, you've fail the quest and the associated NPC will disappear. - The final boss of the "normal" end is an army of adds only and need to kill 20 adds on fire while the others spams fireballs at you. It's not hard, but it's annoying AND frustrating as the final boss. The guy who designed that is, you guessed it, a psychopath. Honestly, up until the end, I was not sure if this review was going to be positive or negative, because despite all its problem, I enjoyed it cause the gameplay itself is good. This boss ALONE make up my mind to put it negatively. In summary, the studio knows how to to do a Souls. But they are all a bunch of psychopaths. Lies of P was better