Finally got Lords of the Fallen since it's free on PS+. Heard about it for a long while now and was tempted to pick it up at multiple points, but never did because I didn't hear a lot of great about it. Having put like 3 hours in, it's definitely not as good as Dark Souls 2/3 or Bloodborne combat wise, it's clunkier in it's speed and I feel not nearly as responsive. The second mini-boss is slightly broken at times in that you can't hurt him at certain points, which made that fight more annoying than it already was because it's just a time wasting boss. Swear it took me 10 to 15 minutes to beat him.
Other than that, generally the UI stuff seems better, streamlined stats and spells, there's an actually story to follow, and it looks pretty good, though seems a little sketchy in performance at times, but I think that's what the game does better than the general souls series. Especially having a story, because I don't care what anyone says, the Souls series has always been miserable at conveying whats going on. I've hated it in every one I've played, even the ones I've really liked such as Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne.
Oh and the challenge portal things are pure eye cancer. Know what I hate in games? When stuff is blurred. Ruined 3D Dot Game Heroes, a game I should've loved. What does Fallen do? Create little challenge locations that are dark and blurred with pulsing light and tell you to start exploring and killing creatures and get loot. It's just an eye strain for me. Heck, I try to turn off motion blur in games whenever I can.