From Software, a name that has become synonymous
with word pain, as its most well known games have become infamous at this point for redefining the
word difficulty. But what I think they should also be praised for is their mastery of a genre.
From Demon Souls all the way to Elden Ring, From software has created, popularized, refined,
and perfected their own genre through the Souls-borne series. Effectively writing the book
on the genre and whether intentional or not From Software has become the teacher for other
developers as many of them have taken notes from the Souls-borne series to create their own
games inspired by them. These games that attempt to follow in the footsteps of From Software,
have come to be known as souls-like games. Just like the Souls-bourne series, souls-like
games aren’t for everyone with their high difficulties, sharp skill curves, and
sometimes unforgiving gameplay. However, many of us have come to find joy in the struggle
of playing these games and whether it’s from repeatedly banging our heads into the same wall or
the heightened levels blood pressure levels from dying over and over again, we find ourselves
continually coming back to these games just to experience the addicting dopamine rush
we get after defeating a boss that took us days to beat. Some of the best games that I’ve
played in recent times have been souls-like, and While there are a plethora of souls-like
I would like to talk about I wanna focus on a souls-like that has perhaps gone beyond
just being a souls-like, Lies of P. Lies of P is an indie souls-like made by Neowiz
Games based on the original story of Pinocchio. Taking place in the fictional and once thriving
city of Krat after a disastrous event known as the Puppet Frenzy caused every mechanical creatures
in the city to wipeout nearly all the human population; you play as a lone and- mysterious
puppet who, with the help of survivors of the Frenzy, must journey through the city to find out
what caused the Puppet Frenzy and stop it before it goes beyond control. Discovering what means
to be human along the way. So I’m a little late to this party but I figured the iron was still
a little warm, plus I wanted to help rectify an issue I noticed. That issue being that there
are not enough people talking about this game, in my opinion. Most of the reviews I’ve seen for
this game have either been extremely positive, or a rant about how it shamelessly copies from the
Souls-bourne series. I’m here to tell you that it is anything but the latter. This game is imitation
at its finest, and I mean that in every positive way. To be honest, the “Souls” formula is pretty
simple when you break it down. High difficulty, dodge rolls, stamina management, death run backs,
sporadic check points that respawn enemies, toss all of those things and few others into a
game and you’ve got something resembling a Souls game. Just watch any video from Iron Pineapple on
YouTube and you’ll see just how easy it is to call something a souls-like just because it has a dodge
roll. Imitation and potential copying is inherent when making anything in a genre. In the end it’s
all about how the mechanics implemented and what twist are added to them to make them different
and standout. I can assure you Lies of P has done more than enough with the souls formula to not
only standout but stand up with the Souls-borne. The combat is exactly what you’d be
expecting from a souls-like. Weighty, visceral, and satisfying. I wanna say
most of the notes Lies of P took from the Souls games series were put into the
gameplay as it’s combined several different mechanics from the Souls-Borne series
into their own fluid gaming experience. Legion arms- for example, are very similar
to the prosthetic arms from Sekiro. You have access to an assortment of robotic arms called
Legion Arms that come installed with different abilities ranging from an electric blast, a
grapple hook, flame thrower and more. These arms can be upgraded to increase there damage
output and utility. My biggest gripe with the legion arms is that I wish there was more
of them. For weapons called legion arms there sure aren’t a lot of them cause you only
get SEVEN of them, and some of them are more useful than others. I felt like some of them were
either too slow, didn’t give off enough damage, or were only really useful in certain
situations. The grapple hook though is by far the best one and has the most utility,
fitting since it’s the first one you are given. Speaking of Sekiro blocking is almost discouraged
in this game in favor of parrying. Blocking attacks does not fully negate damage, you will
still take a portion of damage while blocking. This damage can be regained by attacking the
enemy but will disappear if you are hit before you can land an attack (*ahem* Bloodborne).
You can completely nullify damage by parrying an enemy’s attack. Parrying also gives you a
chance to stun enemies. Parry enough times, and/or hit an enemy enough, and their
health bar will glow white. If you land a charged heavy attack on them while it is white you
will stun them allowing you to get a Fatal Attack to deal heavy damage. Parrying is a crucial part
of the combat in this game as some attacks can only be parried while others are it is far better
to parry it rather than to try to block or dodge. If you have any intention of getting good at
this game your gonna have learn this mechanic. Perhaps the most innovative feature of this game
is the weapon assembly system. Each weapon in this game is separated between it’s blade and handle.
These blades and handles can be mixed and matched with those of other weapons to create unique and
sometimes devastating combinations. The blades dictate the damage and speed of the weapon, while
the handles dictate what the attribute the weapon scales to (scaling meaning how much extra
damage the weapon does based on the level of specific attributes), as well as its move set.
Now you might think to just put together a weapon that does maximum damage, which is a valid
strategy, but not always the smartest one. For me, the move set of certain handles was often a
big determining factor on whether I decided to make a weapon with it or not. Sometimes I
entirely skipped over the better scaling and damage a weapon would have had with one handle
simply because I didn’t like it’s move set, it was too slow, or I thought the move set
of another handle was better. On top of that, you can also add modifiers called cranks to
the handles of each weapon that allows you to improve its scaling towards a certain attribute.
So, putting all of this together, you could take a strength blade, put it onto a handle meant
for a dexterity weapon, so that it will swing faster, and then add a crank that improves the
strength scaling of the handle so it doesn’t lose any of it’s scaling damage. This does have
limits though; since you can only add one type of crank per handle, adding a strength crank to a
primarily dexterity based handle won’t do much for it. If the attribute you’re trying to improve
has a D scaling or less then it’s best to not to waste the crank on it as the scaling increase
will most likely be negligible. It’s clear that the game heavily encourages you to experiment
with this as system. and honestly a good chunk of the fun I had in this game was making different
weapon combinations and seeing how effective they were or how well the worked with my current build.
Something I feel like you should be careful though is weapon attack range. Combining certain handles
and blades can increase the attack range of weapon but sometimes that range can be misleading.
Sometimes a new weapon combination’s range is not as long as it may appear to be or despite
the how long the weapon may be due to the move set of the handle the attacks may end up being
shorter than you expected. For me this had lead to many fatal misjudgments where I thought
an attack would land but ended up whiffing and unfortunately lead to me dying. But hey
that’s the whole point of experimentation right. If you want to add a little pizzazz
and style to the combat you can use Fable Arts. If you played Dark souls 3 or
Elden Ring they are similar to weapon arts and ashes of war. Each blade and handle
has their own built in Fable Art that can range from supportive enhancements such as
lowering your stamina usage when attacking, to unleashing a flurry of strikes or one
devastating blow. While some weapons often had the same fable arts other weapons such as
boss weapons have fable arts unique to them… Once you really get into the game
there’s a point where all these mechanics will start to flow together
almost seamlessly. You’ll be pulling of combos using your Legion Arms and Fable
Arts all while flawlessly parrying every enemy attack. The hardest part to really get
down are the parries as the parry window in this game is sometimes frustratingly small
(even smaller than Sekiro’s apparently), but given enough time you’ll start to learn and
understand the best times to parry or to dodge. The skill curve in Lies of P is a tough one to
navigate but also incredibly satisfying to learn. I would like to give a few quick mention to
the music and level design. I know sometimes it can be pretty hard to appreciate certain
soundtracks while you’re fighting for you life in these types of games, but this game’s
soundtrack is fantastic from the boss themes to the ambient music, and especially the
collectable records that you can find. And I absolutely love the art direction of this
game. To be honest I was kind of shocked how well this game looked and the creative design
of the levels, enemies, and bosses. There was clearly some love and passion put into the
enemy designs, from grotesque, to creepy, to down right imaginative, I (my simple brain)
couldn’t help but think of how unique and cool the different enemies and bosses looked.
Each new enemy brought something new and sometimes something annoying that I
had to look out for. Weird mix ups, delays and pauses, sudden and seemingly unending
combos that never give you the chance to get in an attack. The game would sometimes put some of
the worse enemies in a room together with you, almost as if it was asking “Okay what are you
going to do now?” Other times it throws a random new elite enemy that you’ve never seen before
and it proceeds to manhandle you ten times over. Something I appreciated was that once
you beat an elite enemy they won’t respawn like the other enemies. You may
find different versions of them later on but that particular enemy will remain dead.
Bosses on the other hand can sometimes toe the line between being fun and challenging
and stupidly hard. Due to the mechanics of this game bosses often require you to study
them. You can’t just run into boss fight, start wailing on him and expect win. Each
boss has their own dance that you have to master. You have to take the time learn
what attacks you parry, which ones to dodge, and which ones you can just block and take
the damage from. I often found myself just trying rush and hit the boss when ever I could
and dying a lot because of it. It wasn’t until I started to slow down and pay attention to
what the boss was doing that I started making progress. It might take a few tries to see the
patterns, but eventually it will start to click. If the bosses ever seem too hard the game
gives you the option to summon a NPC to help you during boss fights. He doesn’t do a
ton of damage but what he’s really great for is taking the bosses aggro away from you. The
NPC can definitely trivialize some bosses but other’s he may hardly make it past the first
phase, so I wouldn’t rely to heavily on him. If I had give any complaint about the enemies and
bosses it’s that their tracking is ridiculous. You could be half an arena away from them and somehow
their attacks will still find a way to hit you. Dodging certain attacks in this game is already
hard enough as is but the ridiculous tracking can make some attacks literally impossible
to dodge forcing you parry them if you want to avoid damage. (Swamp monsters encapsulates
many of my issues with the enemies) On top of that enemy aggro range is weirdly large.
Some enemies will just continue to chase you no matter how far you run. Which can make
run backs after death particularly annoying. And the world is teeming with questions.
While not completely devoid of life you can see the city of Krat is in an
already bad and worsening situation, then you see things aren’t much better out side
the city with mutant zombies roaming around, and then the characters seem to vary
from people just trying to survive to shady villains using the whole htings to their
advantage. You’re thrown right in them middle of this while things only seem to get worse
and worse as you progress through the story. With the only way to find out how it all
ended up like this being the scattered and tattered remains left be the victims of it all.
The environmental story telling is done pretty well in Lies of P You can see of this as you
journey through each of the well connected areas, and man does this game know how to give
that satisfying feeling of unlocking a shortcut leading back to a checkpoint. It was
genuinely fun clearing out one area and going to the next and seeing what enemies and
challenges the game had waiting for me. While I may absolutely love this game that
doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some issues. I already went into some of my problems
earlier but these complaints are more targeted towards specific parts of the
game most of which involve the story. There are a few problems I have with the leveling
in this game. First of all the attributes you can level are very vague as to what they do. When
you try to level up for the first time you’ll see your average upgradeable attributes
such as Vitality, Stamina, and Weight, but after that you’ll see these things called
Motivity, Technique, and Advance. Now dear viewer using all the RPG knowledge you may have
gained up to this point please tell me what you think those last three mean, I’ll give you a
second. Got you answer, good, it’s most likely wrong cause Motivity is strength, Technique is
dexterity, and Advance is basically magic or status effects. The game at no point bothers tell
you what any of attributes mean or what they do. After sometime playing you might be able to figure
it out but by that point you will have most likely put some points into an attribute for a build
that you didn’t want. I’m all for letting the player figure things out themselves, Dark Souls
certainly didn’t hold your hand in any way but at least they gave you the ability to look at the
explanations for the uniquely named attributes that you can level up so you don’t waste time
putting points into what might be a useless skill. Speaking of, Experience acquisition in this
game is slow. As with most souls-likes you gain experience by defeating enemies and this
experience also doubles currency. In Lies of P this experience is called Ergo. Enemies do
not drop much ergo upon death, it’s enough to allow you to level up and buy occasional item here
and there but once start you getting into higher levels you better start being real picky about
what you decide spend your points on, especially when item prices are as high as they are in this
game. Now this was probably a conscious design choice as this forces you to make a decision
between items or potential levels, in true souls like fashion. But if I’m given the minimum amount
of ergo needed to either level up or buy items, best believe I’m gonna choose to level up. Which
is a shame because many of the items in Lies of P are pretty useful. Now this wasn’t too much a
problem for me since I tend not to use items to often, but there are a lot consumable items in
Lies of P and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them probably go on used during the average
playthrough because players would rather spend their Ergo on levels rather the items. It’s part
of the reason why I have a problem with the lack of explanation. Those first 20-40 levels I think
are crucial for getting started on the build you want or to at least let you properly use the
weapons you want. Now the game does allow you to RESPEC you character but it’s not unlocked
until you’re about half through the game. So as interesting and thought provoking
as the story is it’s a little disjointed. The stopping Puppet Frenzy is the main conflict
for about half of the game. As we make our way to stop the Frenzy we see that there are greater
things at play other than Frenzy. Once we hit the mid point the story takes slight pivot to
focus on the petrification disease, mutants, and ergo which makes sense as they seem to be the
greater issue at hand the problem lies in the fact that the Puppet Frenzy is kind of pushed to the
side in favor of these new goals and objectives. The initial threat of the Frenzy is basically
sidelined so we can go take care of the main villain. That would be fine if that initial plot
turned out to be a smaller part of the larger plot as a whole, but the Frenzy is almost distinctly a
held as a separate issue from the Manus plot. And the reasoning behind the Frenzy are never given.
The weakest part of the story I would say is the villain. He’s not truly introduced
until about midway through the game, and we still hardly see him after that. Yet
despite that he has a this grandiose plan involving his own personal backstory, several
different characters, and has multiple moving parts. In fact this game starts when his plan is
in its end phase. It seems like we were suppose to see and learn more about his character throughout
the game, but only get to know him near the end. Maybe his role in the story was cut down due to
time constraints or money but what could have been an interesting antagonist got regulated
to an average “take over the world” villain. He isn’t the only character who has this,
there were several characters that seemed like they had some story or background behind
them but for one reason or another didn’t get explored or had little explanation….
I think the main reason these plot holes (for lack of a better word) exists is because
they tried to tell a linear more traditional story while also trying do the vague, cryptic
environmental story telling the Souls-borne series does so well. It’s not that they were
done poorly. They actually complimented each other very well in certain areas There were simply
times where I think the two storytelling methods ended up butting heads with each other, and got in
the other’s way leading to unfulfilling moments. The one thing I wish we saw more of were the
repercussions from lying. Through the entire game it is hinted that Lying or telling the
truth has an effect on your character in some way Lying making you more human while the truth
does the opposite. I like this mechanic and it’s a great way to bring in the Pinocchio’s most
known aspect. The two main problems I have with it is that we we don’t really see the
results of the Lies and Truth until the very end of game and sometimes the the decision
of whether to lie or not is not very clear. This was probably intentionally left vague in
an attempt to surprise the player and show them the consequences of all their decisions at
the end, but I feel like that only works if we see some kind of build up to these eventual
consequences (it doesn’t even have to be big, it can just very small hints here and there).
The only evidence that our decisions matter is the notification we get saying our “springs
are reacting” after making certain decisions and performing certain actions. But we have no
idea what this means or what it is doing. Aside from the nose on the portrait growing as you lie,
at no point do we see this have any affect on our character or how other characters may react to
him. This is the equivalent of going around in a huge dungeon in some RPG and pulling these
random levers. The game is telling you that something happened every time you pull a lever
but you don’t see any evidence that something changed until the very end of the dungeon but by
that point you don’t know has changed because the game never told you what moved to begin with.
On top of all that some decisions are not very clear as to whether they are a truth or a lie.
So you could actively be trying to lie during a decision but choose truth by mistake thinking you
lied and not even know. Sure the portrait is meant to portray how much you’ve lied, but it doesn’t
help if you’ve already made the decision. Given how much Lying determines your ending, this lack
of clarity could lead to you to getting an ending that you didn’t want like I did, speaking of…
Okay this part is much more of a personal gripe with the story, as well as a big spoiler for
one of the endings, you’ve been warned. My first playthrough I ended up getting the “bad ending”,
because decided to trust Geppetto at the end. Now I admit he always seemed a bit shady throughout
the game but he never seemed particularly evil. Even when it is revealed that he started the
puppet frenzy, I held some reservations on him being completely evil because I assumed they would
explain his reasoning. So imagine my surprise when I saw Pinocchio killing all the main characters
at the hotel with Geppetto in the ending cutscene, then Geppetto replacing them all with robots to
add insult to injury. I was completely dumbfounded by this ending, because how was I suppose to
know that he would do that. He had no reason to do it and we see no hint towards his true
motivations that would make him want to do that, aside from wanting bring back his son. Oh
yeah, and the puppet frenzy, you know the whole crux of the game, never explained. Not even in a
cliffhanger sense, where they give you part of the truth and save rest for a later part. I mean aside
from telling us Geppetto started it, they straight up do not take the time to tell us anymore about
it. And there’s still about a quarter of the game left by the time we get that revelation. Again
I don’t know if their planning to explain more of this in a future DLC, but if it wasn’t clear
I was pretty annoyed about getting this ending. CONCLUSION I may have made a lot of comparisons to to the
souls series in this video, and to be frank those comparisons were almost impossible not to
make. Many of the mechanics and much of the world building is very reminiscent of the soulsbourne
series, and anyone who has played any of them will immediately pick up on the similarities.
Though despite what some other people might say, I don’t think this is a bad thing. Frankly, if no
one told you who made this game you honestly would think that this game was made by From Software.
Lies of P has masterfully integrated some of the best parts from the Soulsbourne series into their
own world and gaming experience that in my opinion could proudly stand right beside them. Heck, the
developers at this point could write their own book based on the notes they took from From Soft
ware and call it “How To Learn From Greatness”. With that being said, it would be an absolute
detriment to your experience if you play this like it’s any game from the Souls-borne series. While
it may be heavily inspired by them Lies of P is its own game and should be experienced as
such. I can not recommend this game enough.
