Lies of P Is Really That Great

lies of p is a good game I'd even go as far as to say that it's a great game it has its issues of course which I will get into later but I will say that it's likely the best Souls like I've had the pleasure of experiencing that doesn't exactly appear to be a high bar for many people I'm talking strictly about nonf fromsoft games but I had close to no anticipation for this title I didn't expect this game to be bad or anything I was just almost taken AB back by the general quality of this game this is kind of nuts for a game from a developer I've actually never heard of before in my life I have heard of DJ Maxx though that is basically the only thing I know they've made anyway what makes lies of PE worth playing I really don't need to say it but this real boy simulator is a game that wears its Inspirations on its sleeve don't worry I'm not going to name drop the thing no not that thing you know the thing we all know the thing but I am going to name drop near because there is some near ass [ __ ] in this game however I won't go into spoilers yet I will let you know when that it happens for now let's go over the tutorial area of the game because because you can begin to notice what the game does well and doesn't do as well here so we wake up as our main boy and off the bat the game restricts our movement speed it doesn't really matter that much at all but force walking segments are one of my biggest pet peeves in game design anyways besides that one gripe you select your initial play style and the game throws you right into the action it becomes immediately apparent that everything has gone wrong and the City of Winnipeg has become an absolute [ __ ] hole sorry did I say Winnipeg I meant cross the first opponent we encounter has a very delayed attack animation take note of this because this is somewhat of a sign of things to come however this doesn't really matter as of yet because you can simply tell them to [ __ ] off and leave us alone before they have a chance to attack this goes for most of the enemies you'll encounter throughout the tutorial area which makes sense but then you'll eventually meet your first Elite enemy now if you haven't found the shortcut by now you should have this is where the game teaches you about its General level design which I would say is about Dark Souls three tier For Better or For Worse there's a decent chance you will lose this fight at least once but that's pretty much only because because you actually have to pay attention to the opponent's animations this time that's why it's really good to have that shortcut handy because things will likely get annoying if you haven't found it after we beat the first enemy to present any challenge we obtain a key that allows us to finally leave the station this is technically where the game's tutorial ends but that's not quite accurate this is still very much the introductory portion of the game however now we get to experience crot in its full Twisted beauty while the city has gone to [ __ ] you can tell that this catastrophe is recent crot streets remain mostly intact and it isn't too hard to imagine what this place would look like when you could go to the local sex doll shop without the fear of absolutely getting your [ __ ] kicked in by a puppet however we do hear an announcement that claims crot is totally safe trust me bro there is no cause for alarm do not panic whatever you may hear the city is safe to Traverse we repeat do not be alarmed citizens of uh yeah I'm sure anyone who followed your Authority is completely safe and thankful for your guidance that being said this is a really good tone Setter and this is where the game really started to hook me in with its atmosphere it was at about this point that I could tell lies of P was not your average Souls likee anyway shortly after that message we encounter our first opponent with one of these attacks now you don't have any eye frames when one of these glowing attacks is active so you have three options with these attacks you can Parry them get the [ __ ] away from them as soon as possible or you can take them like a champ I didn't say they' all be good options throughout the game I often found myself simply opting to get away from these attacks because many of them have long startup animations making it a bit more risky to find the right timing to Parry them you'll often find yourself using all your defensive options in this game as individually they aren't really optimal for every situation that is something you should learn pretty early on in this game if you don't want to have a completely miserable time with it moving on we meet the first actual boss of the game parade Master now I don't really have much to say about him other than the fact that he's a solid introductory boss there are many opportunities to deal damage and as long as you aren't playing in an overly stupid Manner and remember all the mechanics you just learned it should only take a few tries at most to beat this thing in conclusion I'd say he's just a little bit more difficult than the helicopter boss from armor core 6 which I guess marks this as this game's first great filter so yeah it's a pretty fun fight after we beat parade master we're faced with our first choice between telling the truth or a lie the option is somewhat fake here as you have to lie to progress as soon as we enter we're treated to the game's opening credits which does a good job of establishing cr's basic history without any dialogue overall this is a pretty solid introduction to the game the only problem is that the delayed attack animations on many enemies make it so you don't really have to respect them this won't be the case later on and it certainly isn't the case when you reach the parade master so it can be easy neglect your defensive options at first making them a bit more difficult to get used to later on I think being able to learn about your defensive options early on is important in this game because I believe it's one of the bigger hurdles that will hold some people back at first it can feel like the game's combat is simply a combination of various mechanics found in from software games and that's sort of the case but it does end up feeling like something unique I actually think the core combat mechanics are really solid for the most part the variety of defensive and offensive options you have make the game feel a bit more Dynamic to play which I greatly appreciate sure the Parry window can feel really tight almost a bit too tight but the reality is that it exposes another flaw with the game's combat and that's the animations now don't get me wrong the animations in this game are overall very good attacks generally have a satisfying sense of weight and impact however I think the reason why people complain about this game's Parry a whole bunch is actually because of the animations there are far too many delayed attacks from enemies where it isn't quite clear when you're supposed to react startups can be so slow and the active phase of the attacks can be so fast that reacting to some of these attacks with your eyesight alone isn't really sufficient you will need to develop some pretty precise muscle memory it can really feel like a gamble sometimes however there are some tricks you can utilize to make these animations a bit more manageable if you're not sure when to react to an animation it's always best to hit the block button early and commit to it this way you at least have a chance to regain any health that has been lost if you get hit directly it's going to hurt this game can harshly punish you for not utilizing your defensive options correctly additionally some blades are better at taking damage upon block than others so I generally recommend using something that can block effectively on your first playthrough keep in mind that even if you manage to block an attack the first time you're not going to be able to get your health back if you get directly hit by another one Li ofp is a very challenging game I'd even go as far as to say that it's the most difficult game I've played this year I'll admit that most of the time I spent with this game was before the first patch but as someone who beat the game pre patch I can definitely understand why they'd make some balancing changes to this game for example capacity is a stat that might not seem vital to every build but it's way more important than you might imagine if you weren't dumping points into capacity good luck with using some of the game's later equipment even then some boss amulets were insanely heavy for no real good reason in my opinion for most the game I only had a single weapon equipped so I could keep my builds weight at a manageable level fortunately these capacity issues did get addressed with the game's first patch and I'm glad because if you allocate your points in a way that you dislike you're going to be waiting quite a while until you're able to resp so I recommend caution when spending airgo it's not necessarily the best idea to min max on your first playthrough especially since you'll be leveling up at a much noticeably slower rate as the game goes on however there are three stats of which you may want to choose only one of motivity technique and Advance are the three stats that weapons will scale with basically motivity is strength technique is dexterity and Advance is Elemental damage generally speaking these stats behave as you might expect motivity weapons tend to pack a big punch but are slow technique weapons are weaker but have several more opportunities to attack and advances basically the game's easy mode seriously I went for a deck build in my first playthrough and nearly Rage Quit several times however sometime after I beat the game I started a fresh playthrough to record some gameplay footage and was astonished by how the electric coil stick absolutely melted content I remembered struggling with I think the reason why this game is more difficult than most Souls likes is because it's generally harder to cheese fights in this game with broken tactics that's not to say that there isn't any cheese but the game typically wants you fighting things up close and personal even when utilizing some of the more powerful weapons in the game you will need to respect the move sets of bosses and Elite enemies while this does Li the build Variety in a way there are enough different weapons and progression systems in this game that make it easy to replay and fun to experiment with my favorite weapon in this game only becomes available much later and by itself gives a huge incentive to experience New Game Plus in addition the awfully named P organ skill tree is definitely not going to be completed on your first playthrough this is one of those games you will want to hop right back into when you beat it the only reason I haven't played more of this game is because I've been a pretty busy guy anyways if my talk about difficulty and whatnot scares you off from this game fear not the Developers realized that maybe their game was almost a bit too difficult and the first patch has made the game far more accessible to those who might want a bit more of a casual experience for example specters actually work now before the patch specters were pretty [ __ ] useless for the most part but now they basically serve their intended function I think that's a good change one change I'm a bit more iffy on is the health reduction on bosses this really wasn't an issue for me I thought the boss fights were at perfect length before there's perhaps a few too many bosses with two health bar phases for my liking but I never describe any of the boss as huge damage sponges so yeah the game that is out now is definitely easier than the one I initially played that doesn't mean it's a walk in the park but you can now experience the game with considerably less frustration if you want to one thing I can't believe I haven't discussed yet is the general polish of this game liip is easily one of the best PC releases I've played in recent memory it's a shame about the whole denuvo thing but otherwise this port is nearly Flawless it's sad I have to praise this but it really feels like a properly finished game I can run lies of PE at Max settings with outstanding performance on a 370 and it's still a great experience at around 50 frames per second on Steam deck at low settings and yeah it's not like the game is the most graphically Advanced out there by any means but it still looks great and feels smooth as butter to play they kind of outdid themselves here if I'm being honest far more games should be launching with this level of Polish you know I haven't said that much about the soundtrack and that's not because it's bad it does its job at creating the atmosphere it needs to but it's the kind of soundtrack that doesn't always stick out to you which can be a good thing that being said there are a few Stand Out tracks but I also heard that the records you pick up are redone DJ Maxx tracks but damn do I love putting on F when visiting Hotel crot so at this point I'm likely going to get into more spoiler heavy territory I'm going to be discussing some of the later bosses environments and a bit of the story going forward if you want to experience this game with a mostly fresh set of eyes this is your chance to click off the video don't say I didn't warn you all right with that out of the way let's talk about this game's environmental and level design well areas are generally not overly complex in their layouts they're very consistent in quality for the most part it's still a joy to find rare items find a shortcut back to the beginning of the level and just soak in the atmosphere that's one of my favorite aspects of this game most areas managed to establish a thick Moody tone while remaining fairly distinct I felt compelled to push myself through boss encounters just to see what the next area would be I always know a game is good when I'm constantly looking for to finding out what lies ahead my favorite area in the game is likely Rosa Isabelle street it's the perfect example of how good this game's environmental design can be at first it can feel like the streets you have seen before and that's not exactly a surprise since it's an area very close to Hotel crot however as you Traverse you begin to notice how exceptionally beautiful this area is through the environment alone you can tell that this was once an Entertainment District home to plenty of grand shows landmarks such as the amphitheater show how extravagant this location is it illustrates just how wealthy crot was before it went to [ __ ] this beauty is also just exposed by the sewers that lie right underneath giv giving Rosa Isabelle Street some literal depth also the final stretch before reaching the opera house is especially gorgeous as well setting a tense mood with both overcasting and fire as a creepy clown mini boss guards what lies Beyond it however there is one flaw here as it's pretty easy to pick up on the repetition of environmental assets here however the fact that this doesn't bother me more despite how blatant it is just goes to show how strong the art direction is here once you reach the Opera House it becomes immediately apparent that it's the Jewel of the district it's not exactly as Labyrinth as you might expect but that also makes it feel like a location that could realistically exist a lot of care has been put into how this place has been rendered it's a building perfectly suited for the king of Puppets lies of PE is full of places that feature this sort of environmental narrative levels are pce in a very meticulous way that evokes particular emotions while exploring them it's rare for a level to feel the same way as it began it's somewhat like how David Lynch is very good at making you feel the emotions he wants you to experience while watching one of his films you might not completely understand what's going on on but the emotions you feel might give you a clue unfortunately while the majority of these locations are great the game's final areas didn't hold up as well for me the last area in particular definitely overstated its welcome and to make matters worse it's one of the blandest looking locations in the game as well It suffers from what I would called final level syndrome it's just too long and doesn't manage to evolve into anything particularly interesting fortunately there are a couple of memorable bosses here to somewhat make up for it but there is one that is less enjoyable which I will get to in a bit oh all however I really enjoyed the environments in Li of P I think the game's world is one of its greatest strengths and what sets it apart from so many Souls likes this Bell aox steampunk setting is so well realized and I just want to see more of it I am looking forward to whatever DLC they have planned for this game and the potential sequel that might have been teased at the end with none other than Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz next I want to talk about the game's bosses overall I quite like them that's not to say they're perfect but I believe that most of them are fun fights despite being really challenging sometimes and that's a careful balance a strike it's easy to make boss battles difficult in ways that aren't particularly fun just look at Sonic Frontiers the final Horizon for example Now spoiler alert for anyone who cares but this DLC eventually requires the player to time their paries when they reach a certain Boss Rush I don't necessarily mind this as one of my biggest complaints about the combat in Sonic Frontiers is that it's far too easy most of the time and a few tweaks can make it more engaging however when you're playing on hard mode Perry's have a very precise reaction window during the Boss Rush and the final boss the Titans you face in the Boss Rush aren't really designed around this tight Parry window so some attack animations are a crapshoot when it comes to reacting to make matters worse you're limited to 400 rings that you must use across the entire Boss Rush this makes for something of a frustrating and unfun challenge I don't blame anyone for turning down the difficulty to easy here the issues don't end there as the final boss has an assortment of its own problems the tack animations are better telegraphed for the perfect Parry but unfortunately the game is misleading about how much this matters the real challenge of this fight is figuring out what the [ __ ] to actually do and it isn't particularly fun it's fairly easy Once you figure it out but the game does a pretty piss poor job of hinting at how to execute the solution but now I'm going off on an unrelated tangent this is a Liza P review a full Sonic Frontiers review can wait for another time anyways while the Liza P bosses share some of the telegraphing issues that Sonic Frontiers has during that Boss Rush it isn't as big of an issue here the reason for that being is the game gives you several options to deal with awkwardly telegraphed animations if you can't reliably Parry an attack you can either Dodge or just simply block and take some ship damage this is what keeps these animation issues from becoming a bigger problem it might even be intentional to degree so yeah while bosses have the tendency to absolutely kick your ass in this game they are still quite fun for the most part once you study and move set enough a lot of fights have a great sense of back and forth it also helps that most of the Boss Designs in this game are cool as [ __ ] some of my favorite fights include the king of Puppets laxia the complete and the nameless puppet I think they strike a nice balance between spectacle Challenge and functionality these fights also work pretty well narratively especially the king of puppets fight on your first playthrough while you can't understand what the king of Puppets is saying you kind of get the vibe that something is going horribly wrong here this is where the near comparison kicks in I'm talking about the original near of course where you aren't initially aware of the war crimes you're committing well this fight makes the twist regarding the nature of Ergo not so unpredictable it was still a wonderful oh [ __ ] moment for me unfortunately despite enjoying the game's bosses in general there are some that don't really do it for me neither of the black rabbit Brotherhood fights are impossibly difficult by any means but I sure didn't like them the first encounter with them was the first boss in the game I didn't have fun with sure the Fallen Archbishop kicked my ass and there were aspects of that fight I didn't love but overall I still enjoyed it however I just inherently dislike how the black rabbit Brotherhood encounters are designed the first one definitely isn't as bad as a second if you play the fight as intended you only have to manage the two enemies at once it's also possible to win the first encounter by simply defeating the eldest which Mak some cheat strats pretty viable but then there's a second encounter you're not getting out of this one unless you kill every single one of them In Cold Blood to make matters worse you're forced to face three of them at the same time it's one thing to recycle a boss that wasn't particularly fun to begin with but wow then they're somehow making that fight even worse after you put down two the eldest will make his return with some new tricks up his sleeve again I don't think this is the hardest boss in the game but damn is it irritating as hell unfortunately after this fight Liza P still has one giant stinker up its sleeve Simon monus is a good fight in a dimension that's parallel to the one we currently reside in the sad truth of the matter is that the Simon monus of this universe is a poopy face and I hope he trips on a Lego brick freaking Hecker his first phase is pretty slow and is fairly easy to beat upon several repeated attempts this aspect of the fight started to feel no different than having to deal with an unskippable cutscene then you have to deal with the balus at home phase of the fight don't be fooled by his lame looks as he will absolutely Slaughter you the difference and difficulty between these two phases makes this fight a lot worse than it needs to be the first phase doesn't present anything interesting enough to be very enjoyable on repeated attempts and just makes the fight a slog the second phase is extremely aggressive and can move across the arena very quickly it's a pain in the ass to learn the openings because you can die very quickly and then you have to drag yourself through the beginning of the fight again Simon Monas would be a much better boss if well he had a better design because look at him he's won the stupidest looking things in the game however another way to majorly improve this fight would be to Simply give him a single health bar that's a middle ground in terms of difficulty between the two phases found in the final game I don't think it would hurt if Liza lost at least one boss encounter with two health our phases fortunately the game doesn't have to end with this fight lysop has one last challenge for the player to overcome the nameless puppet may be another fight with two health bars but they decide to make this one fun it's anime as hell without going to off the rails with it this encounter has some of the best boss animations in the game and even the delayed animations are a lot more clear on when you're supposed to react this is where the game's difficulty is at its best the nameless puppet is tough as hell but a great way to end the game at first I thought that laxia would make for the best final boss and not because of the I can fixer phase of the fight however I'm pretty satisfied that the game ends with the nameless puppet overall I quite like the story while it still has the minimalist presentation that you would expect from a Souls game is not too difficult to understand I like that P himself starts to exhibit more human traits as you progress throughout the game it's subtle details like that which make the game special in that regard I'm not going to do a big breakdown analysis of the story here but I didn't expect to be as invested in it as I was there's some pretty solid World building and characters here if you want me to do an analysis of the story in the future please let me know and I'll consider it anyway Li of p is a fantastic first attempt at a Souls like from a Korean developer I know very little about it's not every day you can say that a random Studio releases a game that rises above most in its sub genre however this game does just that Li of p is quite likely the best nonr software Souls like I played there's a level of Polish here that most Studios can only dream of achieving that's not to say that the game is perfect by any means I'd like to see some level design in the future that's at least a bit more complex than what it's found here the art direction of the environments themselves is fantastic but I think exploration is something the studio could work on improving additionally I'd like to see some changes made to how enemy animations are designed thankfully the game's combat mechanics somewhat make up for this flaw but this is still a significant problem with the game while a certain amount of delayed attacks are fine the game relies too heavily on them if it weren't for the variety of options a player has access to this would be a much greater issue a little pet peeve I forgot to mention is the need to travel to the hub area to visit the obligatory level up waifu and blacksmith waifu fortunately I like Hotel crot enough as a location that it doesn't end up bothering me to too much it always feels comfortable to return here and it's quite gorgeous to look at so this is probably one of the best implementations of a hub area that I've seen in a soulslike besides all that I can safely say that L of P was the biggest pleasant surprise of 2023 I didn't think this game was going to be awful by any means but I didn't expect it to grip me as much as it did this is an easy recommendation for anyone who likes Souls games which is a lot of people now that I think of it it's not a masterpiece as that's a term I don't use lightly at all but damn am I looking forward to what this developer has in store next this this is up there with armor core 6 as one of my favorite games of the year if you haven't played it already just go ahead and do it it's great and that concludes this review if you like what you saw Please Subscribe and hit the Bell icon I'm trying to improve my workflow so I can put content out more frequently and with a higher quality than before I appreciate you watching all the way to the end except if you randomly decided to skip here for some reason anyway thank you for watching and I'll see you again [Music] soon

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Keywords: Lies of P, Lies of P review, lies of p gameplay, lies of p game awards, lies of p platforms, lies of p reviews, goty 2023, best games of 2023, 2023 best games, 2023 games, lies of p goty, lies of p is great, lies of analysis, lies of p critique, lies of p bosses, best games this year, 2023 video games, 2023 goty nominees, goty, lies of p pc, lies of p pc review, lies of p is good, lies of p bloodborne, fromsoftware, soulslike review, soulslikes, best soulslikes

Id: LTI_oyxFEq0

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023