Published 15/10/2022

Lies Of P

FromSoft’s Souls subgenre ranks amongst some of my favorite games of all time. Elden Ring, Dark Souls 1 and 2, Sekiro and Bloodborne are all titles that are near and dear to me. With the subgenre's explosive popularity, there’s been no shortage of other developers trying to carve out their own little piece of the pie, but very, very few games have reached the benchmark of quality FromSoftware created. Out of nowhere, Lies of P emerged, and for a bit it seemed to be treated like little more than a joke by some online. And I get it, to an extent; seriously, a Soulslike game where you play as Pinnochio? We - and yes, I was one of them - were all so wrong; Lies of P is a triumph of the genre, blending solid, engaging gameplay with a focussed vision and some of the best bosses the genre has on offer. It’s a shame many have written this game off as a joke, because to be genuine - this is one of the best games of the year.

I’m not gonna ramble on before getting to my main point of this review; I believe, bar none, that Lies of P is the greatest Soulslike ever made (for those who don’t know, Soulslike being Dark Souls-esque games NOT developed by FromSoftware), outstripping it’s competition by leaps and bounds. But no, I’ll do you one better. Lies of P is a better game then the *exact* title it looks up to. It might be sacrilege, but I think it to be true; I had more fun with Lies of P than Bloodborne, one of the most beloved games of all time. Lies of P feels more consistent, matching Bloodborne’s highs and never sinking to its notably weak lows. Nothing like the Nightmare Frontier in Krat, thank you very much!

At its core, down to its (puppet-like) bones, this is a Souls game in all but name. You’ll be wandering quiet, moody locations, engaging with a pretty decent variety of foes that range from run-down puppets, mutated humans, and creatures that begin to touch the realms of the eldritch. Even the controls and bones of the movesets are akin to its inspiration - normal attacks you can chain together, or heavy attacks you can charge. Rather than the dodge-and-roll that was such a focus in previous games, Lies of P puts focus on a block-and-parry system. Simply put, blocking will reduce the damage you take from your foe, but some of the damage you took was remain, transparent, on your health bar which can be regained if you can strike your enemy before they hit you. However, if you manage to pull out a block the instant before the strike hits you, you’ll parry the attack and take no damage, and do damage to the enemies invisible stagger meter. Parrying is… tricky, in this game. Lies of P puts a lot of focus on this system, and due to that, the early game of this title is BRUTAL as you begin to learn the timing and pace of fights to successfully parry. And to be honest, whilst I did manage to push through the game, as fun as it was, I never really felt I got a good handle on the parry system, since a lot of the boss fights utilize a lot of delayed, chains of attacks that make learning this timing really difficult.

Stagger rises from pretty much all forms of damage, but it’ll particularly rise from the usage of parries and charge attacks, culminating in stunning your foe and opening them up to a powerful, backstab-esque blow. I love the stagger system, rewarding more defensive - but not passive - playstyles, but also giving you the option, as I was wont to do, as slapping them around with heavy and charge attacks just felt *good*. The battle system doesn’t make any dramatic alterations to the formula, but its little tweaks and changes cements it as amongst the most satisfying in the genre.

In lieu of spells or anything like that, P has access to the Legion arms, robotic left arms that can be switched out nearly at will that provide a bevy of additional powers. You’ll start with a simple, heavy punch that’ll chunk down your foes, but your repertoire quickly expands, giving you access to all kinds of elemental and utility-based Legion arms. Easily my favorite was the Puppet Strings arm, that allows you to pull yourself to foes, or pull them to you, fantastic for interrupting moves and controlling the pace of the battles - though, ultimately it’s not as useful in boss fights because of just how goddamn big some of these fights are.

Character progression takes two forms in Lies of P; you’ve got the basics of collecting ‘Ergo’ from fallen opponents, which can be turned in to level you up, buy items or upgrade weapons, but a secondary upgrade system comes in the needlessly humorous form of the P-Organ. For the former, it’s pretty simple - level up, putting points into a variety of stats that’ll help you do more damage with certain weapons, or allow you to carry more items - basic stuff. The P-Organ is a little more complicated than that. It’s powered by Quartz, a rare item usually only found from powerful enemies or, more rarely, chests, and there is a limit to how many you can scrounge up on each playthrough. The P-Organ consists of various nodes that’ll have various ‘slots’ in them. Each Quartz piece will fill one slot, allowing you to select a minor upgrade to go with it. With each slot filled, you’ll unlock a more powerful ‘synergy’ ability, and completing two nodes will unlock a new set of nodes with more powerful abilities. The slot and node abilities are a simply fantastic way of letting players hone in on a particular playstyle; I opted to go for many defensive abilities, letting foes break themselves on my blocks and parries, and supplanting my defense with more heals. The level-up system is fine, but it’s stock standard and just numbers going up - the P-Organ system is engaging, encourages developing a personal playstyle, and incentivizes players to explore more of Krat, hunt down more minibosses, and all that and more to hunt down more of that sweet, sweet Quartz.

Now, as you likely know, whilst Lies of P *does* shamelessly pulls many of it’s mechanics and elements from the Souls series, it does decent legwork in remixing them or, more often, flat out improving them. The most dramatic change comes in its weapon systems; the majority of the weapons in this game are actually comprised of two halves - the weapon itself, and its handles. Whilst the ‘pointy end’, let’s say, has your basic stats, damage type and whatnot, the handles can change the way you wield your weapon, turning a slashing weapon into a thrust, for example. Perhaps more importantly, handles alone affect which stats will affect how much damage you’re dealing. This was the tipping point where I began to fall in love with Lies of P, as in one fell swoop, this little game that could have fixed one of Souls' biggest issues - weapon variety. Let me break it down. So, theoretically, you could be playing a character that puts a lot of attributes into Advance, but you find a weapon that scales well with Motivity. If you were in any of the other Souls games, you’d be fresh out of luck, sans respecting your entire character, but in Lies of P, you can just find a handle that fits your playstyle and still engage with the weapons that excite you. This doesn’t apply to every weapon, though it seems that Boss Weapons - that is, weapons crafted from unique boss drops - can’t be separated, but these make up such a minority of weapons in the game it’s barely an issue. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really play that much around with the system, as I fell in love with the Booster Glaive, Umbrella, and Two Dragons Swords, but the sheer potential and genius of the weapon assembly cannot be overstated, creating far, far more reason to spend an ungodly amount of time developing new builds and playstyles in New Game Plus and beyond.

But, let’s be real. You’re not leveling up, or hunting down Quartz for the mere, rank-and-file foes, oh no. No single element of the Soulslike genre receives greater scrutiny and attention than its boss fights. Now, no game of this genre, developed by FromSoft or others, has a truly perfect run of boss fights. There’s always the gimmick fights, the one versus many onslaughts, and just the plain unfun battles. I’m not going to make the claim Lies of P has a perfect run, but I *am* confident in my belief that it has quite possibly the strongest, quality-wise, roster of bosses in the entire subgenre. From start to finish, Lies of P’s boss fights are genuinely fantastic.

They aren’t just fun to fight, either; these are intense, varied visual showcases, with your foes taking the form of giant, menacing puppet policeman, mutated monstrosities and a decent number of encounters I won’t speak on because the reveals are *that* good. Seriously, few games have made me genuinely whoop and holler in joy as the big reveal in the ‘King’ fight. But overall, this game’s design are incredible, not a bad one in the bunch, with my personal standouts being the ‘King’, ‘The Complete’, and the ‘Archbishop’ encounters, which I’d say provide a pretty good vertical slice in how the boss fights in this game look and feel to fight.

Furthermore, writing this review, I find myself realizing that there are very few bosses I hold any real dislike towards - the Rabbit Brotherhood is a one versus many gauntlet that feels poorly paced, and the The Green Monster of the Swamp feels like a case of too many cooks, being the only time I felt too overwhelmed by far too many attacks and mechanics at once. Sure, there are some hard fights - I’d go so far to say Lies of P has some of the hardest fights in the genre - but every single of these difficult fights feel earned, even if they’re earned through blood, sweat and tears. Seriously, I’d say some of the late game bosses, such as ‘The Complete’ rank up there as all-time hardest bosses in gaming in general, but the feeling of taking them down was nearly beyond euphoric. I can’t quite say I was in love with the mini-boss fights - usually denoted by being immensely stronger than the rank and file, but no sealed arena or unique boss theme - to quite the same extent. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but fights like the Jester or the Round Clown just frustrated me far, far more than some of the hardest boss fights in the game.

In a notable departure from the Soulslike genre, Lies of P lacks a maze-like, metroidvania-esque level design, taking a more linear approach. It’s not like the game is a singular, gothic corridor - there are small, side areas to explore in each of the game’s eleven chapters to find weapons, gear, and whatnot, but for the most part Lies of P is focussed on moving forward near constantly. The world of Krat, and its surrounding locales, feels like a fully realized world, though it’s near impossible to avoid the comparisons to Bloodborne’s Yharnam. It’s a stark depiction of a classical, yet simultaneously post-modern society that has given all the troubles of daily life to the puppets, as made by Geppeto - and the ultimate, yet predictable, outcome of that decision. Wandering the streets of Krat, you’ll find so much detail in the lives that came before; abandoned shops and inns, survivors, barely holding on to hope and life itself, and the dregs rage against the dying of the light. Krat might end up being one of my favorite locations in video games, in general; despite the fact it’s pretty damn linear, it feels lived in and inhabited (well, previously, I guess) and doesn’t just feel like a video game level. It’s a place of history - but perhaps, one of no future.

Despite this more linear approach, the game does feature a number of sidequests and objectives, usually focussing on one of the many NPCs you can gather at the Krat Hotel. It’s genuinely impressive how emotional some of these storylines can be - ranging simply from a boy wishing his puppet friend would return, to a puppet falling in love with his master. It’s truly a tribute to the phrase - less is more; these are not deep stories, but they are poignant, all the same. I would die for the puppets that live in Hotel Krat, suffice to say. A common criticism of this genre is that sidequests are typically far too cryptic in nature, requiring blind luck or, more often, a google search to see them to completion. Lies of P doesn’t spell out many of these sidequests, but if you’ve got someone to talk to or a key item to locate, your fast travel menu will have handy icons indicating the vague area of where you’ll head next, and it just goes a long way in making you actually *want* to see the stories of Krat’s survivors play out, even if they can vary a bit in how ultimately enjoyable they are. Either way, these usually result in some extra Quartz, or my personal favorite, records. You’ll be wandering back to Krat Hotel more often than not, to level up, upgrade weapons, or just have a chat, and you can play the records you scrounge across Krat

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Souls games typically don’t have that great a story - and that’s okay, it’s not their focus, and their worldbuilding and lore, even if it is usually squirreled away in item and weapon descriptions, are generally pretty top notch. Lies of P is probably the first soulslike that I felt had a truly compelling, utterly engaging story. A tale of hubris, of man trying to touch the face of god. Yeah, it’s pretty insane. The story of Krat, the Puppet disaster, and all that emerges beyond the initial battles are genuinely fascinating, with all of it underlined with our protagonist’s silent journey of what it means to be human. Many interactions with the game’s cast will give P a choice of answer, typically one truth, one lie. Do you be brutally honest, cruel, even, to stay true to your father’s wishes? Or do you, from time to time, let out a lie - not out of cruelty, oh no, but out of compassion. A white lie, that leaves everyone happier. I won’t say how the game wraps up, but just know that your decision - truth or lies - does matter, and will affect the final hours of the game. So no pressure. I can’t overstate how baffled, yet genuinely happy, I am to say that Lies of P is a heartfelt, genuinely engaging adaptation of the classical Pinocchio story. Of course, it’s a complete madhouse of a story, but I don’t think any game has emotionally hit me more than speaking with some of the NPCs hiding within Hotel Krat whilst the record ‘Feel’ is playing. Carried by brilliant voice acting that blows most other work in the genre out of the water, the way Lies of P’s developers worked to pay homage and respect to its source material, whilst carving out something utterly all their own. Hats off.

Ultimately, whilst Lies of P does stand on its own sufficiently, the fact that it wears its influences so openly on its sleeves could - and in a sense, has - proven a detriment. I mean, think about it; for those who’ve heard about Lies of P in the run-up to the release, how many times have you heard of it referred to solely as the ‘funny Pinocchio Bloodborne game?’. Hell, even I didn’t take this game that seriously until I actually got my hands on it, with the caveat that I played it through Game Pass. If I missed the word of mouth, would I have paid full price for this game? Can’t really say, but I think leaning so heavily into the ‘Not-Bloodborne’ aesthetic was maybe a stumbling block in actually getting the game out there.

But overall, I can’t say enough good things about Lies of P. A Soulslike to its very core, Lies of P emulates the best the genre has to offer - and its own alterations to the formula, in some cases, surpasses its inspirations. Greatly challenging, yet even more rewarding, Lies of P is a beautiful, somber tale that ranks amongst the best the subgenre has to offer. It may wear its inspirations on its sleeve - perhaps a bit too heavily, from time to time - but Lies of P blew me away, without a doubt cementing itself as one of the best games of 2023. The learning curve is brutal, but I promise you, it’s worth the struggle.

Though, if you need to lie to your friends about how much you’ve struggled… I think they’ll understand.