The SoulsLike That Surpassed Souls

every once in a long while you'll come across something that comes out of nowhere giving you limited wavering ideas what to expect of it only for it to blow away your expectations in an unforeseen Whirlwind of emotions and Excellence it could be someone you fell in love with casually walking their way into your life leaving you feeling like you've never really lived a day till meeting them it could be a hidden talent within a hobby you might have never participated in without some sudden unpredicted intervention leading you down A New Path of fulfillment and purpose or it could be a game about Pinocchio liiza P was definitely my personal game of the year for 2023 and I say that having never played balers Gate 3 or Spider-Man it was the first soulslike game I've played that even remotely compares to fromsoft and that's not just from soft's games but also the company's design philosophy that being innovation of their formula while every other soulslike game seems to feel an insecure urge to crutch on some ill-founded gimmick lies instead focuses mainly on being a competent well-designed game first and foremost the only thing that you could really call a gimmick about about this game is the framing within the world of Pinocchio and even that's a stretch to call a gimmick because who would that be for have you ever met a fan of Pinocchio because I never have in the process of preparing for this video I read the original Pinocchio in order to understand the various references and parodies within lies of PE and I'm going to be honest Carlo cod's The Adventures of Pinocchio is pretty [ __ ] dumb and that's not exactly what I would call a criticism of the work itself it was a children's book published in 1883 obviously it wasn't going to feel fresh or relatable and it was definitely chop full of heavy-handed morals that even children could grasp it was truly a ballsy move to frame a Souls likee within the dumb wacky cartoonish world of Pinocchio and to recontextualize the experience with mature themes in a brutal gory setting for instance these two characters are based on a Duo of grifters which were a literal fox and a cat in the book they run a con on the impressionable puppet convincing him to bury his money in a specific field in order to grow a gold coin tree obviously their goal is to dig up up the buried money in the middle of the night and get that bag and dip which Pinocchio is none the wiser to however these dumb asses can't help themselves but to run every con they can possibly think of on the puppet in the process of traveling with him to the field he would bury his money first they pig out and then stick Pinocchio with the bill at the Red Lobster in then they drop all tacted and just try to Rob his ass at knife point in the middle of the night an act that results in the cat's paw getting bitten off by the Marion's horrifying wooden mouth before they Lynch his puppet ass a fairy ends up saving Pinocchio and he continues on his path to bury his money after meeting up with the two conmen animals because he's [ __ ] stupid and can't put two and two together that the cat was missing a paw the night after he bit a cat's paw off a robber who attempted to hang him the fox and the Cat end up taking his money then disappearing from many chapters before showing up again as Beggars on the street the book is trying to say that being a bad guy is bad and you'll end up destitute if you screw people over but to me it feels more like it's just trying to to say run better cons like you probably wouldn't have ended up like that if you didn't needlessly lose a limb it's dumb Li ofp inverts these characters they're part of a street gang called the stalkers and they're more than happy to lend a hand along your journey only asking for gold coins to pay for medicine for the cat they only become your enemies after being paid to kidnap jedo and they offer to step aside if you pay them first their moral ambiguity only comes down to how they can get their hands on the coins they need to save the cat's life and not just Petty read this take on the characters offers an appropriately nuanced stance for the more mature property that Liza p is and this game is filled to the brim with thoughtful recontextualized references to the original property while incorporating adult themes which culminates in the final fight of the game being one of the most meaningful symbolic hardcore and thought-provoking narrative moments I've ever seen in a video game and which shows a great deal of respect to the original themes of Cotes work as well as a reference to the author himself however I don't want to spoil that for anyone so I'll be saving that for the end of the anal analysis now before I can really start the analysis there are several things that should be addressed probably to my own detriment because failing to clarify these points just gives people something to comment about but whatever I'd rather have a thorough video essay first is that there seems to be a wild misconception that lies of p is reminiscent of bloodborne I just don't even understand how an idea like this gets started the gameplay of Lies is absolutely nothing like bloodborne which has a very simple Dodge roll style of gameplay a single shot gun Parry system and massive opening created with the crippling mechanic aesthetically you could say that they look similar you know because bloodborne is famously set in Italy now that's a spicy [ __ ] meatball the notion that these games are similar is ill-founded and will absolutely set you up for failure if you go in with that expectation bloodborne is a very pretty game and it can be very fun but it is undoubtedly easy compared to lies of PE I really don't want to hear people complaining that lies isn't designed well just because you went into the game thinking you could Dodge your way through I've heard it before and it's it's honestly just showing your hand that you have no idea what you're talking about it's quite silly to say that lies is like bloodborne when lies is a game that heavily focuses on a deflection Parry system featuring a main character with a modifiable upgradeable artificial arm a skill system that offers unique benefits for survivability combat and increasing resources as well as enemies that throw extra dangerous red attacks at you lies is quite literally a searo clone with the stamina bar interchangeable weapons and ring slots and bloodborne doesn't even have ring slots I'll say it again comparing this game to bloodborne just tips your hand that you don't know what you're talking about and the fact that so many people are willing to do so is kind of depressing like did nobody play SEO it's incredible the only thing I can say is directly similar to bloodborne is the utility of this single electric weapon functioning almost identically to the tontis however this weapon being very early game and notoriously useful might have tricked players into assuming that most of the weapons in Li of P would be similar to bloodborne's trick weapons which couldn't be further from the truth as I discussed in my bloodborne analysis the trick weapon is a very simple system with very little utility and mostly aimless design they share very little in common with the weapon system in lies of P which is nothing short of Genius you know as genius as a video game weapon system can be separating the function of the blades and the handles comes with a myriad of benefits in the gameplay experience of lies of PE generally in Souls games once you level a weapon to a certain point you're at least somewhat locked into using it by nature of how restrictive each game is with the upgrade resources if you run into a situation where the weapons attacks are just too slow to easily overcome a challenge for example you might end up having to put your adventure through the game on hold in order to grind souls and stones to transition to a more appropriate weapon lies innovates the weapon system by allowing you to dramatically change the move set play style and special moves of the blade you're using by attaching it to a different handle this can be both incredibly engaging to experiment with many mve sets so as to find your favorite play style without investing a huge amount of time to do so but also can help you overcome tough challenges by adapting your build to the boss at hand now my first assumption was that a system like this wouldn't be able to function without being wildly unbalanced attaching a massive Blade with a huge damage and guard reduction to a quick dagger handle should break the game but this was accounted for each blade has an attack speed stat that will affect how fast the handle's move set will attack meaning that with 29 normal weapons there are 841 combinations of Blade and handle to choose from all balanced under the fundamental rules of the way the weapon system works and all at least somewhat different from one another not that it matters because all of you just used the dragon Katana didn't you now this is one of the reasons to call this game genius designing 29 weapons isn't a remotely daunting task for a development team when making a game however with a little Ingenuity and thoughtful design lies of PE can accurately boast that they have over 800 unique weapons and that part of the player's experience will be to experiment with the system to create a weapon that best suits them with less work they've given you much more than the average Souls like and that's the golden standard for development this style of game design means that the few blades and handles they create within the system are all carefully crafted to be unique and Powerful each in their own way you would be hardpressed to find a single weapon in Liza P that doesn't feel overwhelmingly powerful in one aspect or another whether it be damage speed guard resist or application of a status effect and that attribute will apply to both the weapon and handle which can be combined in many useful ways and that's all without just about any weapon feeling overpowered powered against the intensely difficult bosses this generally offers a very satisfying gameplay Loop of creating upgrading and tweaking a weapon that will make you feel Unstoppable only to be met with an equally Unstoppable challenge that will leave you with a great deal of accomplishment once overcome now the next aspect of liip which receives criticism from players who fail to understand the game in any meaningful way or fail to make it past the first few bosses is that the game will feel clunky for a variety of reasons the first of which is the underwhelming Dodge roll and the second is the awkward W ly telegraphed bosses I'm going to be fairly blunt with this but the Dodge roll is supposed to be bad sure you can upgrade it through the POR organ if you wish which I generally do but the game is fundamentally designed to be beaten with deflections and in an effort to Telegraph this to the player it is absolutely valuable to have a terrible Dodge roll early on far too many people claim that P is clunky and bad because the Dodge roll is clunky and bad which is just a huge misunderstanding on your part if you believe that it would be like playing Guitar Hero while refusing to press the green button and then saying it was too hard if you don't like SEO deflection style of gameplay then you won't like lies of PE and if you've played the game by musling through with just Dodges andc consumables then you should probably keep your opinions to yourself because you never really played the game I feel like people are going to get pointlessly mad at me for saying that because if you squint your eyes it sounds like I'm saying to shut up if you disagree with me but all I'm trying to say is if you judge this game based purely on the clunkiness of the Dodge roll then you're missing the forest for the trees it's supposed to be bad now the next point point about bosses having awkward telegraphs I can totally understand bosses in lies range from malfunctioning robots and puppets to twitching zombie Freaks and [ __ ] PVP style fights many of which will move in natural uncanny ways personally I find the extra challenge of understanding how these enemies move in order to better predict their attacks pretty engaging for the most part and the added horror element of their strange twisting limbs is a welcome aesthetic flourish in my eyes a good obvious example of an enemy moving in an unexpected way is the King's flame f cooko which will attack with this combo which starts with a slam then hides its Telegraph for its next move by lifting its arm back up then following through by spinning its entire torso 360° for the next attack this followup is likely to catch players off guard being that the robot is very humanoid and you're likely going to assume it will move in a human way upon being hit you'll likely feel like the move is pretty unfair at a glance but after realizing your own Psychology was played against you you'll find that the move has a pretty big Telegraph now that you know what to look for the idea of reducing or hiding your boss's telegraphs for the sake of increasing difficulty is nothing new but I feel like the epitome of this concept is Phase 2 of Godfree in Elden ring a boss that I consider to be one of the worst to learn but also one of the best to play after having learned him his many grab moves with il- defined moments of impact while also having fs and delays will likely catch you off guard a 100 times each before you get a good grasp on the timing of them it also certainly doesn't help that these moves are locked behind beating his phase one which is no pushover I that most people I talk to hate horu at first then learn to tolerate him more and more with further experience and I think a big reason to explain that is Godfree completely overdosing on hidden or tricky telegraphs which will Define your first impressions of him lies of P has a less potent but more consistent problem with its telegraphs almost every boss will throw something at you that defies your expectations of how they should move but the pain of dealing with these moves is often somewhat mitigated by taking place in Phase ones or by dealing significantly less damage than a horror blue Atomic rope [ __ ] slam however if you're sensitive to tricky move sets and unnatural movements I could completely understand if you didn't enjoy lies of P it certainly has telegraphing issues and it airs on the side of difficulty over Comfort but that's the kind of issue that if you're like me you'll appreciate for the challenge and atmosphere it brings to the table the last point I want to bring up before getting into the meat of the analysis is that there was another Souls light game released within a similar time period as Li of P which at least at the time the two were often compared to each other by my chats while streaming I'm not sure if people still do this but I will not be comparing the two whatsoever in my analysis in fact I find it insulting to even imply these two properties should be compared at all as they are on opposite ends of the equality spectrum and lies deserves better than to be lumped in with a game that's an insult to its players an insult to the industry and an insult to fromsoft now for the sake of my credentials within this analysis I'll say that I'm no Ang Ball but I've played this game quite a bit my first playthrough I didn't level the health that at all which gave me a very rewarding challenge then I played a no leveling no weapon upgrades playthrough which was a bit more grueling especially within the gank fights after that I played casually several more times just for fun so I have a pretty good idea at this point how the game works and so with all that out of the way let's take it back to where it all began crate Central Station you awaken in the body of Timothy shalamay and pick up Jiminy Cricket to act as your Lantern and homie through your travels fun fact in the book upon meeting Jiminy for the first time Pinocchio kills him with a hammer and then he shows up as a ghost a couple times later on after that you're given a choice between three underwhelming starting classes the difference between the three will be mostly negligible as each offers a different stat allotment and different weapons but these are easily the three least bombastic weapons in the game you'll likely have upgraded to the electric coil before reaching the scrapped Watchmen leaving your starting weapon behind on one hand this makes the starting classes seem mostly pointless but you could at least say that starting with a pretty boring weapon will naturally leave you searching for better options leading you to experiment with the well-designed weapon system also you can just buy all the starting class weapons from the first merchant anyway the first boss you'll encounter is the parade Master a reasonably easy boss once you've learned the basics of parrying which has the first destructible weapon that being his own head that he rips off to uses a m in Phase 2 parade Master is another boss which will rotate its entire torso to swing attacks around and I can absolutely see how people uncomfortable with the SEO style of gameplay would both have a hard time with this boss and also get irritated by its unconventional movements overall I think it's a pretty well-rounded tutorial boss and an especially appropriate early game challenge for lies of P being that it encompasses most of the major combat mechanics without being overly aggressive or oppressive after passing the parade you'll come to the entrance of the crate hotel which requires you to use the lying mechanic to gain access to I think the lying only serves to unlock the golden lie ending in weapon which doesn't tangibly add much to the game I will however mention that lying adds a more more mature narrative Outlook to the original story's themes as lying is more often than not the most altruistic path you can take in lies it shows you've taken into consideration the feelings of the people around you sparing them the more honest harsh truths about this horrifying world for the sake of their comfort it could be said that each lie proves that P is more human than many of the monsters around him especially Simon Manis who spoilers manipulates Ergo to make himself an awakened God who can bring about a world without lies you'll lie to get past Hotel crates defenses and meet with the obligatory bad [ __ ] firekeeper character this time representing the azur hair to deox mocking a fairy that saves Pinocchio throughout the book except when he turns into a donkey she just kind of ignores him for a while because he was being a dick but don't worry he falls into the ocean and a bunch of fish eat all his donkey flesh off of him Pinocchio is a weird book you'll meet with the weapon Smith character who presents you with the puppet strings arm prosthetic there are several very useful Prosthetics which each have four upgrades further increasing their potential utility with puppet strings being my personal favorite fully upgrading puppet strings gives you an insane anime style falling slam attack which comes in quite handy for light cheesing of enemies you would rather not fight most of the Prosthetics offer the same basic utility of supplying an easier option to deal with lesser threats I find them to be invaluable against the mini mandatory yet not fully boss fight but also generally carcass monster Elite enemies which block your progress through the game more often than not I would i' rather skip these lesser fights to spend more time learning some of the incredible main boss fights so it's awesome to have a ridiculous and Powerful resource such as the legion arms durability to spend on skipping these fights I would also say the same of the powerful throwable items which most players will gladly abuse at one point or another so you'll continue your search for japeta by traveling through crate battling various forms of crazed puppets collecting items and new weapons until reaching the Mad donkey fight this is one of the more forgettable fights which I usually attempt to backstab stab my way through without the most success in the world the backstab hit box on these stalker style fights will twist around with their swings and even with the Fatal attack symbol to guide you you'll likely have a hard time Landing the backstab consistently after beating the donkey you'll get his fit and meet up with jepetto or pedos for short now that you've been reunited with Daddy you can proceed to the City Hall which may lead you to this scene in an alley on your way to a shortcut it's some kind of calcified corpse cemented to the wall by an organic substance growing from the body the Cobalt psts are visually unlike anything we've seen so far which should leave you with a sense of intrigue while playing through the beta which ended shortly after this point after the scrapped Watchmen I remember seeing this strange set piece and optimistically thinking it would play into something much bigger the puppets I had fought through so far it left me feeling as though they would certainly get visually boring if the game were to be long and the enemy variety was to be limited to just the frenzy puppets however the product that lies released as turned out to be quite long and the enemy variety was absolutely satisfactory in my opinion which was a surprise to be sure but a welcome one this is the petrification disease and it acts as a Lynch pin for all the enemy units in the game save for humans the placement of a single asset related to it early in the game was a pretty smart use of visual storytelling telegraphing to the players that there's a lot more going on here than a bunch of malfunctioning puppets however the subtlety of its placement means you'll likely put it to the back of your mind when fighting the most dangerous malfunctioning puppet yet the scrapped Watchman is the earliest real skill ch check boss his move set is pretty diverse and his phase two lightning moves will likely throw you for a loop for a while his real difficulty comes from his place in the early game you won't have many options for weapons or abilities to increase your damage dramatically or avoid attacks effectively other than direct deflections for most it will be a very memorable early Game Challenge and an incredibly satisfying accomplishment which will fill you with confidence that will probably be crushed by the various other skill check bosses further into the game after scrapping The Watchmen you'll be prompted to return to Hotel crate where you'll be introduced to the P organ system as far as upgrade skill trees go it's somewhat complicated and overwhelming at first however the Dual reward system which applies an instant passive benefit with each slotted quartz as well as granting the more game-changing skill after completing the node is undeniably rewarding this system will encourage players to hunt down loot throughout crate and to take out the mini bosses which generally carry a quartz this is often rewarding twice over being that many of the many bosses are incredibly well-designed but I would have passed them over without a second thought if it wasn't for the implication of a tangible benefit somewhere on the horizon after collecting enough quartz next you'll head to the veny works Factory which the electric coil blade should absolutely carry you through however you should also pick up the fire salamander dagger for an early game fire weapon which will come in handy shortly in this area you'll face off against more industrial robotic puppets like the double shield guy and the dreaded shovel puppet which guards the shut off valve to the Decay liquid pouring into the first puppet of the Futures Arena the puppet of the future is not the most engaging fight but is welld designed for what it is the massive delays might feel like openings however without being mindful of your positioning you'll get stomped over and over each one drops a quartz and there are three in the game and I'm sure you'll be sick of them by the time you defeat the last one this area also has a stalker fight which drops an emote you can use to lie and skip a fight later on but I feel like the later fight is easier to beat anyway so I can't say I'd recommend this to anyone other than completionists I'm not a big fan of the stock ER fights but their drip is pretty fire the final boss fight of venes is the King's flame foko as I said before this boss has some pretty unnatural movements within its move set I would say this boss acts as a skill check but definitely less so than the scrapped Watchmen no offense if you got stuck on him your options to increase your power and abilities at this point has increased dramatically including the P organ and many opportunities to claim quartz on top of that this boss's move set can often be subverted through positioning with most of his moves lacking the aggress that many other bosses will shut down less deflection inclined players with I'm certainly not calling him easy but there is significant wiggle room to beat Foy coko with less conventional tactics this Phase 2 offers some strange interactions as he will focus more on shooting Fireballs than melees which often gives you the opportunity to whale on him while his shots go over your head this can increase the value of your potentially recently acquired booster glaive handle obtained in the puppet of the Futures Arena the charged heavy can help you close the gap while Landing big hits on the boss it's a pretty sloppy way to beat him but you could easily Sue yourself through if you're struggling past the king's flame you'll Traverse through a mining Village overrun by the frenzy puppets till reaching this avoidable stalker fight she has some of the most easily triggered backstabs of the stalkers as her attack leafer sitting still momentarily at the end of her combos still pretty boring fight you'll then take the cable car which takes way too long especially if you've turned down the vocal volume like I have which I'll explain later before reaching the next significant area of the game the first enemy within this area is this strange zombie creature I wouldn't be surprised if most players were at first to write off the carcass monsters as unrelated to the main story simply existing as an obligatory video game Zombie however it won't be long before many subtle hints Will point you towards the realization that these new monsters are somehow related to the presence of Ergo just as the puppet frenzy was too one aspect that Liza P absolutely Nails is the fromsoft style of Storytelling which doesn't tell you straight up what's going on in their worlds but instead leaves hint meant to build Intrigue in the more invested players this also applies to the boss fights many of which become recontextualized after the origin of Ergo is revealed to you and especially so in the new game plus when the puppet's language is deciphered to you this also takes place in this seemingly unimportant Bridge scene which in New Game Plus reveals the speaker to be commanding the puppets to protect Humanity by defeating these carcass monsters shortly after you'll get your first Glimpse at the Archbishop a Resident Evil esque centipede monster devouring a corpse on the other side of the room that slither THS away upon noticing you this does a good job of displaying just how twisted these carcass creatures can become and sets an eerie sacrilegious feeling to this dilapidated old cathedral which has many secrets to uncover and acts quite similarly to an Elden ring Legacy dungeon there are many shortcuts to unlock unconventional paths to take in the pursuit of Loot and will be your first chance to meet aldoro the boss weapons vendor located right down the road the cathedral will also however be your first introduction to the mandatory carcass monster Elite enemy which arbitrarily blocks off a door that will magically open upon their defeat I can't say that this is a good feature especially when most of these enemies are less than boss level in terms of quality of design there are occasional standouts but for the most part they only serve to be an excellent opportunity to try out the more overpowered elements of the game such as Legion arm or throwables you'll eventually reach the boss bonfire and clear shortcut to the boss as well as burn away the liquid poison which will give you a convenient runback lies excels at offering extremely convenient shortcuts back to bonfires and offers me an incredible example to point to when I say that interconnected areas are vastly superior to the archaic idea of an interconnected world the level design in lies of p is extremely well thought out for the most part with the worst runback being less than a minute that is however a runback to one of the most hated bosses in the game so it's obviously not without its floss the Archbishop is another huge skill check your weapon will likely be upgraded all the way through the first upgrade resource but that's as far as it can go at this point this fight is most notable for having alternate timings on many of its basic attacks which will change between Phase 1 and two without being entirely conscious of which phase you're in and which moves get delayed or will come at you more early you're going to end up eating unnecessary hits or unperfect guards the fact that the boss has two different sides with different move sets is a cool mechanic in theory but generally it just means you'll ignore the centipede half's move set altogether eventually he'll turn around facing you with the more comfortable move set of his ass so it's nearly pointless to learn the Angel's move set at all the last point of interest about about this boss is its strange Phase 2 half Health event move which fires a magic projectile out of its ass that explodes with a huge AOE as well as slamming with the angel side also admitting a huge AOE I've never looked up how other players deal with this move but the way I do is pretty dumb I just stand underneath it while positioning the assmouth projectile to hit a further wall then transition out from under the bishop before the second slam lands avoiding this move gives you a pretty big opening and will usually end the fight past the bishop you'll go through a short Village area filled with zombies before reaching a closed gate with a carcass bear locked behind the monster is set free by the youngest member of the black rabbit Brotherhood however it's easy enough to slip past after dodging the first charge attack you'll fall into the malum district with the bonfire just outside of the Red Lobster however just like every Red Lobster the doors are closed probably due to health code violations after working your way through the malum district and unlocking the shortcut back to the bonfire you'll have access to the most powerful character in the lies of P Universe the consumable merchant the inclusion of this vendor here could from a certain perspective be seen as an answer for the upcoming gank fight which is especially useful to have throwable items on it would be nice if you could invite him to stay at the hotel centering the most important vendors within the Hub area but whatever I'm just glad he exists shortly after the Red Lobster you'll be challenged by this group of theater kids who went out of their way to find a coffin paint it then pose with it before grapple hooking away the eldest brother is one of my favorite fights in the game his combos are incredibly satisfying to learn as breaking his weapon becomes all too valuable in this endurance gank fight and if I liked fighting any other members of the black rabbit Brotherhood I might say that this is the greatest gank fight of all time the careful restrictive way they introduce each of the members at various points in the eldest health bar leaves almost every point in this fight controllable the eldest brother loses aggro almost completely whenever another member enters the fight which emulates him taking a moment to catch his breath and that's understandable considering the effort he puts forth in his default State you can for the most part disengage whenever the eldest attempts to engage alongside one of his siblings leaving this fight one of the least gank gank bosses I've ever seen despite the fact that there are four individuals within this fight the obvious downside to this fight is that the three baby brothers are all really [ __ ] annoying to fight for various similar reasons the taller spear wielding brother is probably the least annoying as his attacks have pretty clear openings but by nature of how the awkward way the backstabs work when enemies have just finished their animations you're likely to miss a backstab at some point this often results in being punished by the enemy staggering and retaliating in ways that often end in unavoidable damage from either the retaliation or the eldest brother's charge move the youngest is probably the middle most annoying it will still punish you for failing her backstabs and being the fastest will punish most consistently and the other one is the most annoying mostly because his backstab openings are the least apparent and his thrust moves will accelerate him faster than you can Sprint away meaning disengagement is not always possible generally you'll end up learning to use throwables to subvert at least some part of this fight personally I fight the first two naturally then use thermite on the last brother both because I find him the most annoying and because it means I don't waste any consumables on early failed attempts it's a real shame that the more classic PVP style enemies of this fight leave such a Negative impression because the setup for this fight is remarkably well done for a gank fight introducing every ad one by one allows you to learn their terrible move sets individually without much distraction and they were able to get a ton of character out of these enemies with just a few lines unique move sets and a ton of visual details in their mod I will admit I have a soft spot for this fight I just think it's pretty cool in a variety of ways but it is filled with flaws and that gets even more apparent with their second appearance much later in the game after a quick stop at the hotel you'll head towards Rosa Isabella Street and shortly after you'll reach this fight with the white lady I think she wants to speak to your manager again these PVP style fights are easily the worst fights in the game and I hardly consider them boss fights at all they're more like invasions within a game that doesn't have invasions considering their loot is mostly just Cosmetics I try to avoid them or cheese them as much as possible white lady has some insanely fast thrust moves with almost no telegraphing but she's pretty easy to beat with simple Circle sprinting or you can spend some more of that thermite you should have stocked up on next she'll be the guy who [ __ ] puppets then you'll navigate through the sewers and the Flaming streets that lead to the mad clown puppet just about every facet of this fight would lead you to believe he's worth skipping he's placed very far from the previous bonfire meaning the run back would be insane there are several flamethrower ads that follow you into the fight which you would have to clear and that's not to mention the visual aesthetic he embodies perfectly represents the kind of troll fight that would pull out cheap tricks and then laugh at you for falling for them I would have absolutely skipped him without hesitation if it weren't for my stream chat telling me two things firstly he drops a quartz and secondly there was a bonfire just after him and so I buckled in for whatever cheesy style of gameplay I would use to finish him as fast as possible claim the quartz and be on my way however this fight turned out to be one of my favorite mini boss fights in the game he's certainly not complex enough to be called a full boss but as a mini boss every part of his design is interesting to engage with offering alternate timings on certain moves you'll have to be aware of as well as change up in follow-ups based on your positioning his spin move gives you a chance to deal some significant posture damage easily especially if you're up close and engaging with him enough to land every deflection I was absolutely glad I didn't skip this fight and it's kind of a shame that there's only one other mad clown that exists in the game as far as I'm where and that's a malfunctioning version that deals electric damage and is much more prone to using its boxing glove attack which isn't a red move this time there's also no close bonfire so I would recommend skipping that one even though he drops the legion caliber which again is a shame your next area will be the opera house which is a relatively small area the main objective of which is to unlock the shortcut to the boss fight with the king of Puppets the king is what I consider to be the final skill check of the game being that you'll effectively have to use just about every skill set the game has has to offer to beat him a phase one with two phases that gatekeep your progress in learning an entirely different phase two with another health bar new red moves and a water foul like flurry combo is no small feat to accomplish that's all without the ability to tralize some of the fight through the use of the Perfection grinder being that it can only be unlocked further in the game from a gameplay perspective the visual design of this fight is pretty smart for the first half of phase one he'll attack with both his robot arms and Wacky Waving arm flailing and flatable tuban arms within the same attack and same hit boxes this will lull you into thinking the boss will act just like any other four limbed giant boss of past games however once part two of phase one is activated his four limbs very clearly become six with most attacks hitting twice on top of that his tube limbs will sag across the ground when he attacks meaning the timing of the hit will differ based on your positioning of course even the double hit attacks can be parried if you know they're coming but I think a big part of the skill set of this boss is figuring out which moves you'll want to just dodge for the sake of of increased eye frames and which ones you want to Parry for the sake of posture damage this results in a boss fight that is very engaging mentally as you'll be actively utilizing multiple combat mechanics at once switching between them on the Fly while being mindful of positioning all the while you'll have to focus a great amount of effort on having nearly perfect phase ones in an effort to save as many pulse cells as possible for Phase 2 that's not to say you would ever give up on a run just because you've been playing poorly in the early parts of the fight the pulse cell recovery mechanic is incredibly valuable for maintaining an ambitious and hopeful attitude while attempting bosses and lies of PE I don't believe this mechanic has been done before in a soulslike but I could be wrong about that if this was a Li's original it again speaks to the developers Ingenuity and their willingness to evolve the genre alongside fromsoft on a side note it's kind of ironic that the greatest reason I have to respect from soft's design style is that they're adaptable adding new ideas with each of their games yet the worst idea they've ever had was adaptability anyway in Phase 2 the king of Puppets becomes Romeo the king of Puppets this this is an interesting and subtle nod to the book as Romeo is mentioned exactly one time in the novel clarifying that a character called lamp's real name is Romeo and then only ever referring to him with the nickname for the rest of the story lampwick convinces Pinocchio to be a bad boy with him and run away to a magical island with a sketchy old man where they were groomed with Hedonism before being turned into ass and their asses get sold to wealthy old men what the [ __ ] was cot [ __ ] no Damas maybe this book isn't so outdated anyway lampwick never gets eaten by fish so he dies many years later as a donkey in Pinocchio's Arms This subtle reference to the novel could relay to the player that Romeo is either actually P's friend or that he's the one to lead you astray either way it becomes clear that the skit he puts on for you in the cut scene of his fight is very important however you won't know why till the final fight of the game the Romeo fight is extremely fast-paced with many moves that will delay as well as alternate moves that will swing quite quickly his weapon is breakable which will rarely come into play the unfortunate aspect of this fight is that you'll have spent so much effort getting here that you'll likely not want to waste the run on failing paries especially when dodging behind him almost always results in several hits of free damage I would absolutely recommend learning his paries at some point being that his fight is one of the best in the game but I wouldn't expect most to attempt it on a first playthrough that is unless you have the armor health and guard resist to tank a lot of potential hits one aspect that she has weak in this fight is his foot slam red attack which won't deal durability damage to his weapon and can be punished quite effectively by simply spacing yourself far enough away which the move gives ample time to set up his flurry combo is terrifying and for the most part I save a fatal attack for the moment he activates it to knock him out of the move in hopes that I'll finish him before he tempts it again after beating the king your next area to beat is the lon zini arcade which features a mandatory Elite carcass monster followed shortly after by the rare non-carcass monster blocking a door this Jester bot is fairly unique in having two destructible weapons which get destroyed independently of one another depending on which attacks you manage to perfect deflect you can also pit the carcass monsters within this area against the jester and sometimes they finish them off for you the following area is the grand exhibition Gallery which has incredible level design but also terrible enemy placement these stationary throwing enemies are spammed throughout this area including this rafter section which also has a double door robot here for some reason this is just before unlockable shortcut which unfortunately is positioned right after the first spam of throwbots which means failure will have you run the gauntlet of projectiles once more the next few areas have threats here and there but the icing on the cake is this Elite enhanced human fight at the very end just before the boss runback shortcut failing this fight will send you back several minutes through many potential hits of damage which could Whittle your souls down to nothing by the time you make it back to him one thing that the lies devs could work on is designing fights that are more encouraging to attempt or ordinarily I wouldn't hesitate to make an attempt on any boss or boss-like enemy but when the stakes are so high I usually attempt to run past them which in this case and in the case of the mad clown you find a shortcut or bonfire shortly after anyway it would certainly be more encouraging not to feel pressured to run away from potentially good fights and instead naturally feel inclined to kill them with better placement after bonfires or with a stake of Amica system like in Elden ring the grand exhibition is probably the worst area in terms of enemy placement which isn't great considering many people dislike the next boss as well personally I like Champion Victor quite a bit most of the time when bosses use their hands to deal damage the telegraphs become difficult to see as the difference between an attack and an idol animation can be hard to distinguish Victor solves this by being an over-the-top WWE wrestler for most of his fight his combos are straightforward but satisfying to learn especially the double red move combo which you'll have to steal your nerves to get the timing down as he alternates between quick and delayed moves I find his phase two to be his weakest point being that he has very little punish for players getting distance from him and several of his ranged moves ends in openings it is particularly beneficial to manipulate this ranged move which gives you several openings and a Parry in a consistent way I believe he's also the first of many bosses that attack after you trigger their fatal attack but this is only in phase two after Victor you'll get a cut scene fully introducing Simon Manis another one of the few weak points in the game I don't think this game really needed a mustache twirling bad guy to feebly antagonize you before turning himself into the average League of Legends player with many other characters throughout crate showing complex personalities many of which being far from good-natured it would have been nice to have a better main villain for example Manus could have had more selfless intentions that spiraled out of control till he accidentally turned himself into a monster showing regret before his final moments of transformation but whatever we'll go into depth on Simon later after Victor you'll take a tram to the baron swamp a Labyrinth of puppet Corpses four roombas and shovel puppets you'll eventually reach this area featuring two puppets of the future as well as a cannon overlooking the fights from a nearby Tower which is inaccessible from this position there are many pieces of loot to acquire across this section of the swamp but obtaining them ranges from dangerous to Impossible without clearing some of the threats stalking throughout the cro of liquid your best course of action is to make a beline to the cannon which is unguarded from the rear and also features a shortcut back to the puppets of the future clearing them grants you a quartz each and leaves the area much less dangerous for hunting butterflies it's an entirely optional but very rewarding section of gameplay which allows you to chip away at the non-responding defenses bit by bit while obtaining rewards as you go there's also a stalker fight with this owl but I can't say that I would go out of my way to fight it also just before the cannon you can fight the first of these cartoonish Pinocchio puppets which seem to be a weird meta way of mocking you I'm not sure who would make this thing and if it's even supposed to be a reflection of P but the way these attacks eerily mimic your Dodge roll gives the fight a creepy vibe that matches its nightmarish face it drops a stamina ring though so it's worth taking out with cheese or consumables of some kind soon after the tower you'll come face to face with the green monster of the swamp insert obvious Shrek joke ah I forgot to write one the monster fights in the unconventional ways you would expect spitting acid slashing its poisonous tentacles at you and burrowing into the ground for surprise attacks From Below one of the interesting interactions that will leave you Clues as to how to better fight its Phase 2 is the charging red attack which if perfectly parried will stop the monster dead in its tracks there's also an assortment of regular melee attacks the highlight of which is this combo preceded by a roaring animation I'm not really sure if this combo is interesting to par because I've only ever subverted it by dodging the first attack before clapping his ass cheeks while he finishes the combo going to be honest bro kind of Caked Up where this boss truly shines is in its Phase 2 which is one of the biggest o [ __ ] moments in the game after beating the monster back it turns away almost as if it meant to flee before noticing the shimmering golden Ergo sprouted out of the husk of a dead puppet with the battle at hand you're not likely to have noticed this shattered machine at any point throughout the fight seeming to be a simple visual detail decorating the arena you would have no reason to assume this puppet was familiar to you especially when considering the context that this is just a video game and why wouldn't the devs plant a previously used asset here purely for cosmetic purposes drawn by the power of the golden Ergo the monster pours its slithering body into the broken shell of the puppet perhaps Reawakening the marinette's Ergo that had lost upon its defeet at your hands meat and machine meld together joining two broken beasts into one fully functioning symbiotic organism with the singular goal of breaking the puppet who had beaten them both I've spoken before about my admiration of this fight but most of it is worth saying again because many of the design choices involved in the making of this fight should be studied and imitated by other devs making similar products using Assets in ways that strengthen both the original use as well as developing a recontextualized meaning for the new form is the ideal path for a development team to take once again with less effort the creators of Liza P have elevated their work beyond what was expected this fight could have included a simple phase two with increased damage and new moves which coming off of champion Victor who does just that would have made this point in the game such a lull and memorable content instead we get a completely different and challenging yet also comfortably familiar Phase 2 that invokes a moment of reflection over how far you've progressed in the game so far and how far your skills have developed beyond the moment of first defeating the scrapped Watchmen every aspect of the implementation of these reused assets hitboxes and animations is utterly brilliant from the subtle inclusion of the watchman's body within the arena in Phase 1 to the complex way the two boss's move sets and behaviors were Blended together to create one fluid challenge the green monsters red charge move is reworked into this multi-state staged frantic puppet charge which can still be stopped by a perfect guard and many of the watchmen's basic melee moves now include follow-up tentacle slashes this fight overall is a huge shift in the game introducing the carcass puppets and confirming the notion that all the major enemy factions are born from the same Affliction and that Ergo the substance that gives P life and grants him power is the Tie that binds them together now one thing I wanted to quickly touch on is how unfriendly this game is towards new players which can lead to the aformentioned bloodborn comparison humbling less deflection inclined players highlighting this Balan shift is the special Ergo boss weapon reward for beating this boss specifically the ring you can get from aldoro for this boss's Ergo this ring fundamentally reduces the difficulty of the game in an all-encompassing way allowing you to dodge through the Red Fury moves with eye frames I wouldn't be surprised if many players who quit the game early did so without realizing the red moves are undodgeable understandably to their frustration my problem with this ring is that any any player who manages to get this far in the game clearly didn't need the ring in the first place and players who desperately needed the advantage will never make it that far before giving up in SEO there's an option to increase the difficulty of the game by giving away kuro's charm which will make you take damage on anything but a perfect block and there's the demon Bell which increases incoming damage however lies goes in the opposite direction giving you an easier experience only after unlocking it a good portion through the game and that kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me I would have liked to see this ring very early game perhaps offered even at the very start however the trade-off could be that it prevents you from unlocking skill-based achievements it would be a small change but it would allow a far greater audience of players to enjoy the game a short ways after the puppet devouring green monster fight you'll find your way back to Crate Central Station Back to Where it All Began yet this time carcass monsters have infested their way through crate this area has really great level design taking a simple large train station dividing it in two with unlockable check check points at Key areas and then turning the ground floors into a Labyrinth of train cars filled with carcass Monsters by the time you clear this section of the game you'll unlock the last gate and have a direct path from your last bonfire to the next fight with the robber weasel the weasel is one of the most frantic stalker fights and Deals some of the most damage of all the humans which most often leaves me to be one- shot by her red moves or stagger comboed she's probably the most well-rounded stalker being that she doesn't offer easy backstabs and is prone to dash around you to engage when you're most vulnerable again it's just too bad that the stalker fights are the least satisfying to beat and offer pretty bad rewards luckily you can enlist the nearby carcass monsters to help you fight if you're really interested in dressing up like a weasel after making your way through the station you'll emerge under the corps filled streets of crate and at that time you might be thinking man it's been a while since an elite carcass monster blocked a doorway but don't you worry your little puppet head because this stabby Shield arm Balland corpse creature will block your path soon enough somebody needs to tell him that it's a pull not a push it does both I was here yesterday it actually goes both ways I will say that despite my criticism the variations of these roadblock fights is appreciated the carcass monsters almost seem like they share a hivm mind move pool that the more powerful of which can draw upon and manipulate their bodies to execute next you'll get to see an establishing shot of the Argo in the earth tearing apart crate with these ominous blue crystals which my big ass puppet ax absolutely ruined my foot of these crystals also manifest in the disruption emanating variety which adds many dangers to this area and adds to the value of potential armor pieces you might have picked up along your travels lies offers an interesting play on the classic soul style armor system in the form of its parts which separates the different stats that classic armor pieces would Grant into four categories of Parts the first is your [ __ ] ring which gives direct damage reduction the converter adds Elemental resistances cartridges offer resistance to status effects and liners give you resistance to slash strike and Pierce damage this system simplifies your inventory taking what used to be four armor pieces per set and reducing it to a single item which specializes in one stat need more Pierce resist put on a better liner Foy Coco's Phase 2 kick in your ass equip a more appropriate converter overweight produce the parts that don't apply to the challenge at hand this approach to defense stats offers a very straightforward method to manipulate your build and supplements the Cosmetics of armor with costumes including many of which that look fly as [ __ ] after beating this set you'll be ambushed by an elite carcass monster that didn't have a door to block so some black goo blocks your path until this uniquely small zombie is defeated this one kind of sucks the following area is filled with enhanced humans including your first look at these cane wielding [ __ ] which deal crazy damage after finding your way through these apartments you'll come face to face with the Walker of Illusions a mandatory boss that like the Mad puppet I assumed it would be annoying to learn yet I ended up enjoying quite a bit after realizing her Cleaver was destructible I focused heavily on deflecting the combos in which she doesn't use her secondary dagger so I could reduce the damage of the more dangerous element of the fight I was soon to see the interesting interaction that takes place after breaking her main weapon which resulted in her dagger becoming much more of a threat compared to the now shattered Cleaver this left me with the realization that her current most powerful moves would be the ones I was attempting to ignore while I found this to be a pretty cool concept I would later find out that her dagger was destructible as well meaning her whole move set is worth learning to perfect Perry especially so when considering this fight becomes gank for small portions when the boss uses this clone move you can pretty easily Rush the Clone and crush it before it can do much but this becomes much less dangerous task when you've broken both the boss's weapons you can also just leave this fight by Falling Down the ladder out of the Arena so as to wait out the Clone which will despawn eventually this boss also has a unique ability that removes its stagger debuff preventing you from triggering a fatal attack if you're not fast enough she's very consistent about always using this ability whenever her posture bar fills so you can generally throw caution to the wind whenever her health bar highlights and push into her till she dashes away and attempts to move however if you find yourself often missing this opportunity you could always equip the booster glaive handle or an upgraded puppet strings to close the distance or shot puts which instantly trigger fatal attacks after this fight you'll begin hearing whispers of a monster attacking the hotel which might build Intrigue in your mind that is until you work your way back to the parade which features the very first boss in the game and now that you've beaten the watch in a second time followed by several areas full of reanimated puppet corpses it might not come as a surprise to you that the parade Master is back and better than ever corrupted parade Master is competently designed But ultimately disappointing it doesn't offer anything that we haven't seen before which is especially apparent with the puppet devouring green monster not all that far behind us this version of the parade Master doesn't have a breakable weapon making it a pretty straightforward fight that only changes up when the boss decides to spawn a carcass monster with this move the enemy at spawns is a a basic zombie but as I found out on my no leveling no weapon upgrades run if the fight drags on you'll see him eventually spawn a more powerful basic zombie with ball hands you'll have an opening to instantly hit and hopefully kill the ad however it's not worth trying with the heavy weapon being that the parade Master will always follow up with the grab move this fight is just fine I never look forward to it but I don't mind spending some time on it now that you finally made it back to the hotel you'll see that it's been ransacked by the stalkers and that japedo has been kidnapped you'll take a secret elevator to a small underground area filled with various bits of loot before reaching a familiar coffin now sealed with chains and equipped with some kind of injection device the black rabbit Brotherhood returned to take their revenge on you using jeta's kidnapping to lure you into their Arena now this fight is pretty [ __ ] frustrating probably the most frustrating in the entire game there are so many interesting ways that the developers attempted to make this fight work with many of them only highlighting just how much of a [ __ ] show it would be if they weren't implemented the aggro reduction of the non-active attackers is definitely appreciated however when the non-active fire dude decides to do a 90 hit combo while chasing you across the arena just because you got a little too close or he hit you with puppet strings doesn't matter what systems are in place to make the fight enjoyable gank fights are kind of inherently recipes for artificial difficulty the potential for zero win situations skyrockets when several enemies are throwing multiple attacks in your direction for the most part being good at gank fights means abusing whatever aspect of the fight allows you to ignore the gank aspects of the fight which generally ends up looking [ __ ] stupid like running in circles around the arena like an [ __ ] the whole fight it doesn't help that I don't like fighting any one of these Pricks alone and now they pit all three of them against you and the most tragic part of this fight is that they hid the only good part of it at the very end only after you've spent multiple minutes dealing with the baby brothers the enhanced Undead eldest brother burst out of the coffin when only one sibling is left meaning that you're going to want to whittle the last one 's Health down before activating Phase 2 because you definitely don't want to deal with more gank at that point thematically this fight creates a connection between the carcass monsters and the enhanced humans Shoring up the information you can gather about Argo shortly before the final reveal that takes place after this fight however that might be the most valuable aspect of this boss learning his new move set is going to be an uphill battle as each failure will be met by the baby bunnies once more this means that your best bet in order to save yourself time and frustration is the cheen his Fury moves can be avoided by predicting them and sprinting away which leaves you with an opening so long as you disengage in time to Sprint away again the sad realization is that this boss could be good could be worth learning in depth but the baggage of phase one isn't worth dealing with if avoidable and so if you're like me you'll have spent the entire fight sprinting away from all of them and it most certainly won't be satisfying to beat but it will be a weight off your shoulders on the no upgrades run I did this fight broke me and resulted in a migrant Rin that put me out of commission for the rest of the day the cherry on top of this mess is that this boss follows in Champion Victor phase 2's footsteps getting several attacks in after you trigger a fatal attack including this Ergo wave attack this fight is kind of the inverse of your first encounter with the Brotherhood and so it loses the value of breaking the eldest brother's weapons within the original fight you'll learn the broken weapon acts as an investment in the run frontloading the difficulty behind perfect paries in order to give yourself better odds once the gank arrives in contrast this fight might end before you manage to break the weapon at all and therefore investing in deflections doesn't even register compared to Simply applying damage in summary just cheese him this fight has a lot of cool ideas but the execution is terrible I just wish the three siblings fight was separated from the eldest therefore the eldest could get a proper Two-Face boss fight and also a closer bonfire would be nice just past the final resting place of the black rabbit Brotherhood you'll reach a submarine that'll take you to the final area of the game this island is the birth place place of Ergo or at least where The Alchemist learned to create and manipulate it to their Will Sophia the blue-haired bad [ __ ] meets you on Shore but not really as she reveals she's been projecting herself to you this whole time kind of like the ending of that shitty Star Wars movie but let's ignore that Sophia explains that Ergo is the byproduct of the petrification disease freezing your soul in time manifesting it as a material capable of being used and abused her Alchemist parents had run Argo experiments on her till she was a Godlike being capable of controlling time through argo's effects and projecting herself to you in order to Grant you her strength it's revealed that she was protecting you this whole time turning back the clock at every one of your many deaths making the post-death loading screen a literal representation of Sophia using her powers on you this also ties into the theme of lying as each rebirth is essentially a lie making you the hero of the story rather than the destroyed puppet you would be without her influence and after your short conversation with Sophia the true story of lies of pee becomes clear to you the puppet frenzy the carcass Monsters the enhanced humans they're all the unintended consequences of cramming time lost souls into machines and bodies as a source of power the rebelling Souls raged against their confinements destroying most of crate in the process however as you walk through the Sands you'll see several Ergo ghosts depicting lost memories interacting with each reveals the story of Carlo jepetto's son who died after Contracting the petrification disease it was his Ergo that had been powering your mechanical heart this whole time his Ergo that reacted in your Springs whenever you lied in a way he would approve with further Insight you'll learn that a boy named lampwick grew up with Carlo and that when his Ergo awakened within Romeo the king of the puppets he did everything in his power to protect his friend Carlo and Humanity in whatever way he could for reasons he attempted to share in his own way he offered an alliance with Carlo however with his offer rejected all Romeo could do was attempt to stop Carlo from walking the path he was on which resulted in their battle and even though he failed to stop you he let left you with something important his belief that Carlo is inside of you despite the chaos and destruction caused by the misuse of Ergo in the attempt to control life your journey as a product of that same Ergo is to prove that it can be wielded for altruistic reasons as well and that path leads directly to your final confrontation with Simon Manis at the top of the Alchemist Tower but first you'll have to get there the defenses at the base of the tower are incredibly dense with an arsenal of cannons pointed at your approach and an army of carcass creatures wandering through the area past these threats you'll face the door Guardian a giant carcass creature with a yorm like gimmick health bar who takes enormous damage from Fatal attacks it's a pretty forgettable encounter that you'll hopefully complete in a handful of tries as each attempt requires a run back through the previous defenses much like an area in Resident Evil specifically four this boss will drop a highlevel Alchemist badge in which you'll use at various points throughout the next couple sections to open doors and raise platforms this area even includes ridiculous overtop booby traps that shoot out of the wall I mean just look at this thing it's absolutely begging for a QuickTime event in which Lon performs an unnecessary backflip this whole section of the game once again has some pretty incredible decisions in its level design often reusing the same bonfire several times with multiple shortcuts back to it but you should have come to expect that from lies at this point the next fight you'll encounter is with the black cat which is skippable if you offer him Gold Fruit which I would recommend especially when he gives you the same loot for skipping the fight as you would get for beating it you'll continue ascending the tower making your way through some of the toughest areas of the game fighting an assortment of many bosses you've previously encountered such as the Pinocchio bot and the jester bot you'll even encounter a completely unique Elite carcass monster that wields a puppet's torso as a weapon and drops a legion caliber as a reward eventually you'll find your way to what many consider to be the hardest fight in the game laasia the complete laasia is unique in having the only breakable defensive weapon in the game that being the great shield on her back in phase one lucky for you this doesn't require perfect paing to break a single charged heavy with a large weapon and acid damage can one-hot the shield which I recommend considering this will reduce her move set for whatever reason breaking her Shield prevents her from using her three hit Dash poke combo which has very difficult telegraphs and Alternate timings between each thrust this also lowers her Phase 2 shield strike damage so it's worth getting rid of early and forgetting about another facet that makes this fight unique is her weapon break which automatically activates her Phase 2 regardless of her health I would recommend this but I've never managed to break it before dealing enough damage to finish her off even when attempting to Parry her to massive combos which are very satisfying to learn but which take considerable effort to get down with any confidence Phase 2 to me is the weakest part of the fight being that it becomes much more of a spectacle than a back and forth engagement which is highlighted by the introduction to the face laxia filled with the power of lightning becomes the obligatory woman who's so powerful she can fly boss and sends a barrage of lightning balls at you while sitting in the sky a perfect deflection rever verses the lightning back towards her and following her projectile attack she'll slam into the ground and leave you a rather large opening which should result in a sizable dent in her health bar before the fight has even really begun from there you really only have to survive her awkward melee move set which weaves in teleportation delays into her normal moves seemingly at random until she sends more lightning at you at various points throughout the fight she's an incredibly difficult and aggressive boss that will test your nerve at many points throughout even after her fatal attack is triggered which results in a two-hit combo followed by an electric AOE blast after her defeat a cut scene pans up to the top of the tower showing a surge of energy that shatters the brick structures around it which build suspense as to what Manis is doing up there with lax Asia dead you can now make your way into Sophia's Chambers the real Sophia this time her body is mutated into a decaying mess of butterflies and rotten tendrils a far cry from the dignified and mystical way she had been presenting herself through her projection the Alchemists had been keeping her alive in this state against her will and so she asks you to kill her and give her peace in doing so you take her ergo so that she'll be with you to the very end I'm not sure what happens if you do the other option I'm not sure why you would it seems like the obvious evil choice but now that you know the conditions that Simon Manis had kept your greatest Ally and benefactor in you should be more motivated than ever to end him once and for all you'll Sprint through the remaining areas of the game making your way up the tower till meeting up with the fox stalker if you didn't give the cat a gold coin she'll fight you regardless however if you did you can offer her another to skip her fight as well which I again recommend either way you'll get a key from her that will unlock jepetto's prison cell now that you're reunited with your papa he asks you if he's been a trustworthy Father which just makes me wonder is this really the time to ask that like I just fought and beat Electric Millennia to save your ass can you save your insecurities for later anyway after comforting PTO you'll continue through the last level of the Tower and you'll likely feel pretty exhausted at at this point this game is really long especially for a Souls like and especially for a first entry Souls like for these devs I can't express just how much confidence this title exudes in its design from being unabashedly difficult at times to choosing [ __ ] dumbass Pinocchio as a setting these devs Neo witz and round eight have some fat nuts on them and that definitely shows in the length of the game and that's not even mentioning girth that's also without overstaying it's welcome for the most part I would say that this Tower segment at the end of the game game is probably the most tedious but you'll be so engrossed in collecting all the valuable loot items and killing mini bosses you're likely not to notice it's probably most noticeable at the end only because you're not likely to find anything that will dramatically increase your power at that point therefore I find myself sprinting through this area most often but even this far into the game they still have unique assets up their sleeves with this poisonous enhanced human which will drop a quartz if you're in the market for one it won't be long before you reach the final mandatory boss of the game queso I mean Simon Manis Simon's final scheme is revealed to you to fill himself with so much Argo that his body begins sprouting horrifying corpse limbs that almost seem to [ __ ] him he coughs blue smoke and stumbles around like an [ __ ] while swinging sloppy poorly telegraphed massive arcing attacks that'll often feel as though they have shitty hit boxes especially when you're fighting him too close and will seem to have alternate timings based on your positionings this is the worst fight in the game no it's not the actual worst or Guardian in a black rabbit Brotherhood 2 would probably claim that title but this boss had so much resting on its shoulders being the final mandatory fight of the game lies of P became an instant icon for tight well-designed and difficult gameplay knocking out of the park so many hard to design mechanics established by previous Souls games and inventing new mechanics that also work incredibly well because of those qualities this boss is such a [ __ ] let down in almost every category his move set is trash so you'll likely just dodge his attacks so this boss fails to take advantage of interesting Perry interactions his weapon is breakable but it only removes his electric attacks which were never a threat whatsoever his red moves are delayed to a point that blatantly defies the laws of physics with little in the way of telegraphs especially when considering positioning he's one of the ugliest bosses and not in a particularly horrifying or valuable way I just don't want to look at him because he looks [ __ ] stupid and I would also apply that to his Phase 2 which is better but by no means final boss-like you could easily Swap this model into the door Guardian fight or scale it down to make an elite carcass monster blocking a door and I don't think anyone would bat an ey his Phase 2 magic attacks don't add much to the experience except for the same artificial difficulty that a gank fight would have when any of his delayed spells enter the arena you'll have to deal with them alongside his standard melee move set and alongside the ambient giant hand AOE at half Health this results in the same gameplay you would expect from a gank fight that being running around for most of the fight to disengage Eng from the potential hazards and all that's without mentioning the heavy-handed way the literal hand of God comes down into the arena lies has so much Nuance to every reference it makes I don't know how this move wasn't seen as an overreach overall this fight is actually garbage and it makes me appreciate every single good decision made before it but that is not an excuse the existence of this fight means I will never complete the ending in which it's the last fight because it would be an absolute shame to end this incredible game on such a low point and that's compounded when considering the option final boss that comes next is my favorite fight in the game and when Simon finally goes down he laments that he could never have won because Sophia chose us to turn back time for so he's a sore loser as well and so with the arm of God the Ergo you've collected from your many defeated opponents the soul of a bad [ __ ] to look over you and the goal of becoming a real boy you take a massive elevator down to meet jepetto and end the game assuming you've taken the golden lie path the probably Cannon ending you've l Glide your way through crate with each moment of humanity greeting you with a message ranging from your Springs reacting you feel warmth or your heart is pounding in many ways both tangible and metaphorical you've proven your Humanity already you've defeated your enemies you've remembered your friends and comforted them you've listened to and played music you've held a cat and so when the time comes to become a real boy the question becomes do you need to be anything more real than what you already are and when jepetto asks you for his heart the heart you You' nurtured and grown throughout your journey the Heart that contains Carlos Ergo Romeo's message becomes clear he wasn't showing you the past he was warning you of the future because Carlos's death was unavoidable but P's death doesn't have to be and so Romeo was really fighting to save you not destroy you I mean he might have been fighting a little hard for that goal considering we all died a hundred times to him but maybe he knew about Sophia's influence and thought he could wear us down and so you refused jepetto's request at which point he scolded you for being a bad boy before revealing the puppet that Romeo warned us would have our heart placed inside with some kind of Ergo fed puppeteering Gauntlet jepetto lifts the gruesome animated corpse of his son out of his suitcase his body has been mutilated with machinery and surgery filling the cadaver with the mechanical instruments necessary to Grant it movement this scene is actual poetry within a [ __ ] Pinocchio game The Duality of the puppet turned real boy facing off against the real boy turned puppet with a misguided Father Figure literally pulling the strings to manipulate them against each other is so deep on so many levels the visual design of a machine wearing the rotten flesh of a dead child is horrifying and the notion that jepetto finds more value in the hollow flesh of the sun he created than the altruistic living machine that his son made himself into is hauntingly poignant and meaningful this level of recontextualization of cod's original work shows that a Titanic amount of respect and thought was put into the design of this fight and the game as a whole I wouldn't be surprised if this was the original idea and the rest of the game was built around facilitating this very moment so I just have to wonder why the [ __ ] is this fight optional because even outside of the insanely well-designed Aesthetics this fight is incredibly well-designed from a game playay perspective I have one complaint that even registers as a flaw and it's on one move in Phase 2 purely due to tell graphing issues if you've played this game I hope you know what I'm referencing and where I'm coming from anyway Phase 1 has the nameless puppet transforming its weapon between three configurations that dramatically change its move set and play style it'll start in the heavy move set which you'll learn to be most comfortable with considering you're bound to have more practice with it than the others the quick move set will activate after a certain amount of time has passed in the fight at which point the puppet will also use a pulse cell if this health has dropped below half the quick moves are fun to learn but also much more difficult to invest in however will deal much less damage the last form that the namelessness weapon will take is a Thrust configuration which he will only use a couple of moves in before returning to one of the other states the goal that will naturally become clear to you based on the way the fight is designed is to apply damage efficiently enough to beat phase one while only having seen the heavy move set this has the benefit of reducing the boss's move set to a very simple one while also avoiding his usage of a pulse cell with decent damage and a mostly perfect fight including a staggering a fatal attack it's quite easy to accomplish a single move set phase one which will grant you a leg up in phase two the second phase of nameless puppet begins with a cut scene where P anime slices through the puppet's defenses cutting off the top of its Dome while severing the Marinette strings that japedo had been controlling it with the wound Reveals All of the mechanical pieces crammed into the child's Cranium including a cross-section of the eyes which will light up to tell graphit phase to grab move a very engaging way to play on the visual design of the boss with the ties That bound nameless to jetto severed its intentions evolve from incapacitating P to absolutely destroying him with the same ferocity of the displaced Souls within the frenzied puppets and worst of all he reveals himself to be a rivers of blood user to me this fight is the most interesting and satisfying to learn the move set can be divided into standard melee moves which include frantic mini hit Combos and the more spectacular event-like moves that can often be approached in many ways including subversion through positioning the only move that absolutely doesn't work well is the massively delayed red Dash move that has virtually no Telegraph whatsoever remember when I said I turned off my vocal and music audio it was purely in an effort to attempt to offer myself something to Telegraph this move the sound effect that plays when a red move activates is a wavering noise that if focused intently on can offer you a hint as to when you'll have to block but it is by no means a perfect solution if your pitch is slightly off you'll miss the timing entirely on my first playthrough I thought the telegraph might have been the eyes lighting up such as what happens within the grab move I thought the X lockon reticle might have been blocking the visual Telegraph but after some experimentation unlocking when the move was coming I found nothing eventually I began using the audio method and upon picking this game up once again to gather footage for this video I played the entire game without vocal or musical audio before reaching this fight they fixed it this was the only problem I found within my favorite fight in the whole game and the devs fixed it like are Neo wiiz in round eight trying to [ __ ] me because honestly if that's the case is working if you include all of the narrative importance and the Thematic elements that surround this fight I might consider this boss to be better than any fight that fromsoft has ever designed maybe the best fight of all time and maybe I'm just being hyperbolic but this is an insanely well-designed fight for a firsttime souls-like development team upon beating the name puppet a cut scene will play in which the puppet manages to get a cheap shot that knocks P onto the ground and first of all I would have deflected that but p is made defenseless in the face of the nameless puppet's final blow a Thrust that stopped dead just before landing the kill shot japedo had stood in the way of the attack after seeing that the rampaging puppet wasn't hesitating to destroy Carlos's heart P then charges his Legion arm and in one attack punches a hole through the nameless puppet destroying its mechanical heart in the process japedo falls into P's arm and upon seeing the tear running down P's face he apologizes realizing he was wrong not to accept p as a real boy or you do the non-golden LIE ending you're just useless puppet now for a couple of things that I thought were cool but I couldn't find a spot to include throughout the analysis I really like the soul HS dropping outside of the Boss Arena mechanic I know you can basically go both ways with this either claiming it erodes the difficulty of the template that DS1 put forth or that it's an evolution of the formula and that it airs in the favor of the player I think people get overly attached to the archaic designs of the past especially the ones fromsoft decided to move away from a long time ago like interconnected worlds personally I'll take the convenience of boss fights that don't involve a pre-fight miname of grabbing your souls over the alternative any day another thing I liked was that your Ergo counter turns blue when you level up Souls games generally have a stat that tells you what your next level will cost within the status menu but a simple unobtrusive notification that you're ready to level up is an appreciated addition and lastly you can roll around to get rid of overheat it's not exactly going to affect your playthrough probably at all but it's a cool little detail now at this point I think I've made a pretty good case to claim that lies of PE is an incredible game and I would understand if you agreed with that while also being upset with the title of this video especially considering how overinflated some people's perspective of certain Souls games are a lot of my opinions come down to my philosophy about analysis of from soft's work bloodborne was supposed to be the very best Souls game told to me by many people as well as influenced by my personal tastes however despite enjoying the Aesthetics of bloodborne I found the game as a whole to be completely lacking in a variety of ways including the majority of bosses being terrible and the weapons being disappointingly simplistic and so in attempting to objectively rank from games I couldn't rationally put bloodborne any higher than between DS2 and DS3 which left me with the realization that my tier list had simply become a reverse chronological release date list and this left me with the realization that every one of fromm's releases had innovated on the previous title in one way or another in most cases keeping what worked well and leaving [ __ ] like adaptability and interconnected worlds behind and don't get me wrong I love every single one of these games but I'm not the [ __ ] crumble cookie kid I can't can't just pretend that every single game is my favorite just because I like them if each game improved on the last that means that each previous game was worse than its successor liip is clearly a very well-designed game might not have had the taste for it or dislike the setting enemies or gameplay but aside from personal gripes it is one of the most high functioning Souls likes of all time and that's including from soft's Games The Unique Mechanics like the handle blade weapon system por organ upgrades pulse cell recovery and weapon durability for bosses all Elevate Beyond from sof's fundamental base game design and that's all without letting any of the core tenants of a Souls game fall to the Wayside the bosses are incredible and difficult the hitboxes are tight the atmosphere is dramatic ranging from intense spectacles to somber grotesque horror and the level design is engaging and interesting to explore all while they've carefully crafted a rich world with deep characters and a twisting plot all placed respectively within the world of a public domain story Neo wids and and round eight have forone the standard souls-like routee of clumsily attempting to walk in from sof's footsteps they weren't trying to capture the essence of an older game but to take what we have in the genre and push it further into the Next Generation and in that they've created so many fresh new Innovations many that fromsoft themselves might use someday I would absolutely love to see a bloodborne sequel which uses a play on lies of pe's weapon system to create a trick weapon mechanic that actually fleshes out the concept instead of the boring garbage that we got in bloodborne the developers of liip have proven that they understand that Innovation is the soul of fromsoft they don't need to look down at footsteps of the past to develop their game because they know the destination and in knowing that they can walk side by side with fromom instead of having to hide in their Shadow one thing that I think is undoubtedly unfortunate within lives of p is the seik restrictive difficulty of the game when lies first came out my friend asked me if she should play it and as much as I wanted to say yes I couldn't in good conscience the only Souls game she had played so far was Elden ring as far as I knew and so I had to tell her I love Liza P but I doubt you would like it with that in mind I made this video Essay with a much more narrative framing so as to capture the major plot points and general ideas the game is meant to portray this was in hopes that people who didn't enjoy lies or gave up before beating it could essentially get the full experience of playing it minus the satisfaction of beating the bosses and so if your friend sent you this video they wanted you to know that they think you suck too hard to beat lies of PE you stupid nerd in all seriousness this game is not for the faint of heart and if you watch this video because you didn't or couldn't beat lies of PE well I greatly appreciate your view honestly with the Positive spin this video has I have a hard time imagining it will do well so every share comment like and dislike will go a long way in making me feel as though I didn't just waste a month of my life making it I also have a patreon which as of now has one follower by the name of ethanol thank you so much for believing in me and thank each and every one of you for watching and uh let me know what I should make next I have a lot of ideas but not enough time to execute them so any input is greatly appreciated

Channel: Jester of Juice

Views: 5,728

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Id: xwV-PGXEGGE

Length: 76min 14sec (4574 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2024