I have been a huge fan of Souls-like games ever since playing From Software’s Bloodborne back in 2016. The combination of tough as nails combat, obscure and environmental storytelling, and tragic characters is intoxicating and alluring. While not every Souls-like game ends up being 100% my cup of tea, my ears at least perk up anytime I hear about a new game in the genre. However, Lies of P went beyond just catching my attention.
Before I go off about Lies of P, I have to talk more about Bloodborne. It is not only my favorite Souls-like game but also my favorite video game ever (I can explain that more in a future blog entry). However, it’s notoriously lacking a sequel despite adoration from fans. This is because From Software doesn’t actual own the intellectual property- Sony does. And Sony is infamous for withholding production of sequels unless the game in question is guaranteed to be a massive cash cow. For as critically acclaimed as the original Bloodborne was, I guess it didn’t financially satisfy Sony enough for it to warrant a sequel. With this, Bloodborne fans have begrudgingly accepted the fact that the game is probably going to remain standalone til the end of time.
Thankfully though, developers at Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio refused to accept that reality. Instead, they decided that if Sony wasn’t going to greenlight a Bloodborne sequel, then they would make the next closest thing. Enter stage right: Lies of P. This game combines elements from many Souls-like games as well as featuring some unique elements of its own. However, at its core it is undeniably a love letter to Bloodborne. I even just happened to play through it while going through a very rough patch, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of how Bloodborne helped me through what was easily the worst year of my life (as I said earlier though, that is a topic for another day).
As the name implies, Lies of P is a reimagining of the classic tale of Pinocchio, albeit much darker and grittier. It’s set at the end of the 1800s in the fictional Belle Epoque city of Krat. Krat was previously a technological powerhouse thanks to the city’s use of automated puppets. However, these puppets began disobeying their owners and eventually mass slaughter and casualties ensued; this event became known as the Puppet Frenzy. Krat and its surrounding areas are now lawless labyrinths of violence and disease, and the puppet Pinocchio is tasked by Geppetto and friends to find out why the Puppet Frenzy happened and how to stop it.
A decent chunk of Lies of P’s story is found in environmental storytelling, item and collectible descriptions, and good old-fashioned discussion with others. I felt that it strikes an entertaining balance of cutscene exposition and personal investigation. As you progress, Pinocchio will be faced with choices and questions that, quite fittingly, involve telling the truth and lying. I’ve seen a lot of players get tangled up in a truths versus lies mindset, but really, what you should be thinking about more is human versus puppet; Pinocchio’s identity as a puppet elicits a variety of reactions from characters (usually negative) and part of your duty as the player is deciding where he will fall on that puppet to human spectrum. A few of Lies of P’s story beats feel a bit familiar, but I was still glued to my seat for hours on end and overall, I very much enjoyed the main story.
In the heart of the city is Hotel Krat, a safe haven for survivors of the Puppet Frenzy that also serves as the game’s hub. Here is where Papa G resides, as well as Sophia, Pinocchio’s guide, Antonia, the hotel’s owner, Polendina, Antonia’s puppet butler, and Eugenie, the weaponsmith. Other characters may come to reside here as you navigate gothic city streets, cathedrals, caves, poison swamps, and other locations.
These characters’ side stories are often quite compelling; I felt truly distraught at some of their twists and turns. What also helps is that progressing such quests is not nearly as obscure as it is in other Souls-like games. I find that I often fumble many side quests in Souls-like games because I missed the seventh of nine necessary encounters with a side character, or I saw them but wasn’t wearing the right piece of armor, or I saw them and was wearing the correct armor but I didn’t perform a particular emote outside a certain door and kill a random enemy. You technically still can mess up some of the side quests in Lies of P, but it is much harder to do.
The core gameplay of Lies of P is similar to its contemporaries: each area is marked with numerous stargazers that serve as rest points. Resting refills Pinocchio’s healing pulse cells but also respawns the enemies in the area. Combat is punishing; enemies can trap you in combos and nick you with long weapon hit boxes before you get the chance to heal. Dying respawns Pinocchio at a stargazer, but his ergo, the game’s level up currency, will be lying in a puddle wherever you fell. Memorizing attack patterns and anticipating openings is key to succeeding, as it being mindful of your own stamina. Parrying opponents to stun them and land special fatal attacks is not mandatory (ahem, I have never been good at parrying in any Souls-like game), but it certainly helps your progress.
Pinocchio also has special moves, called fable arts, that are linked to each weapon. To add some versatility, each weapon has an offensive and defensive fable art. This adds a much-needed defensive ebb to Lies of P’s gameplay loop, as combat is often pushed in a far more aggressive direction. There are no traditional shields, although there is technically one way to acquire a shield that I will touch on shortly. You can still guard with your weapon, but guarding for long periods of time is discouraged: a portion of the reduced damage you take by guarding can be recovered by attacking the enemy in return.
Another set of weapons that Pinocchio has at his disposal is the Legion Arms. These prosthetic left arms can be swapped out for one another and feature different abilities. My personal favorite is Falcon Eyes, which lets Pinocchio shoot sticky grenades. It’s the closest thing you can get to having a gun. You can also light enemies on fire with the Flamberge, grapple them with the Puppet String, withstand devasting blows with the Aegis’s shield, and more. Ammunition for the Legion Arms is relatively limited and so they never end up being a primary damage source. However, they provide excellent support utility to help fight enemies in unfavorable positions or deal with enemies that have particular elemental weaknesses.
Lies of P’s most unique combat mechanic is its weapon assembly system. Most weapons (any non-boss weapon) can be broken into their blades and handles and then mixed-and-matched with each other. Pinocchio can create some hilariously bizarre combinations, such as by sticking the massive heads of clubs or great swords on the tiny handle of a dagger. The part of the weapon that is actually upgraded is the blade, so that will be the primary determinant of the weapon’s damage output. However, scaling is linked to the weapon handle attached to it. The handle also determines what type of moves can be performed with the assembled weapon. For example, if we take the great sword blade/dagger handle abomination previously mentioned, the damage will be linked to the great sword blade and it will have a nice, big hurt box on it. However, it will scale most effectively with Pinocchio’s technique (dexterity) and will feature stabbing motions, courtesy of the dagger handle. This system is incredibly fun to play around with to find a combination that suits your playstyle; my combination of choice ended up being the bone-cutting saw’s blade with the fire axe’s handle.
To sprinkle in just a bit more customizability, you also have some control over each handle’s scaling. Throughout the game you collect cranks that can be used to increase scaling in one stat at the expense of another. You can only increase scaling by one letter grade, so it’s impossible to make something very technique heavy, like a lance’s handle, scale well with Pinocchio’s motivity (strength). However, this is great for weapons that scale decently with a certain stat that you want to be pushed just a little further. For example, the fire axe has C scaling for both motivity and technique. I dumped most of my stat points into motivity, so I used a crank to increase its motivity scaling to B. And since I didn’t allocate any points to technique, it didn’t matter to me that the technique scaling dopped to D. Overall, the weapon assembly system is incredibly fun to play with and it is absolutely the combat feature that helps it stand out from other Souls-likes.
As far as my frustrations with gameplay go, I don’t have many. It does feel stiff and slow at points, but that’s a part of its DNA. My largest issue is that the speed of some bosses feel a bit out of place in a Souls-like game. The are three bosses in particular that run, leap, and attack at such speeds that I felt limited less by my skills and more by the mechanics of the game itself. If they were plucked out of Lies of P and dropped them into furious hack-and-slashes such as Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, they would have felt right at home. Thankfully the game does have an NPC summon system, but it doesn’t feel quite right that the only reason I am getting consistent hits on a few certain bosses is because they are paying attention to the NPC I summoned while I wail on their backside.
There is also the matter of the corruption status condition. Corruption functions similarly to curse and petrify from Dark Souls titles- if the gauge fills up, Pinocchio dies instantly. I don’t have an inherent problem with the status condition, as most of the time it is stuck on weak enemies that are easy to kill and whose real only threat is being able to spread this status condition. But Lies of P makes the huge mistake of allowing a boss to cause corruption. Not only that, but rather than spreading corruption via a mist cloud that you can run out of (which tends to be the way these kinds of conditions are usually present in Souls-likes), Pinocchio builds up corruption whenever he is struck by certain projectiles from this boss. Very fast-moving projectiles, I should add, that are never released one at a time but in groups of six to ten. There were many times I dropped dead at full health fighting this boss because I got stun-locked and was struck by six or eight volleys in a row.
As I previously mentioned, some of the locations you will visit in Lies of P include city streets, poison swamps, and cathedrals. While the environmental variety is a bit lower than other Souls-like games, these areas still offer fun exploration, lots of unlockable shortcuts, and gorgeous views. There are also day/night and weather cycles for most areas; being able to see areas in varying lights is a treat that most Souls-like games don’t give the player. Areas also feature their share of hidden enemies that will fall on you, break through a wall, or come running out of a heavily obscured shadow. And I can’t forget to mention the abundance of booby traps and giant, rolling balls. These are mostly welcome features, however, during the late game the developers became obsessed with ballistas. The first time I walked into an open field and suddenly got pierced with a giant metal stake, I was surprised. For all the subsequent times I ran into them, I became progressively more annoyed. The only upside about the crazy amount of ballistas is that most of them are fairly quick and easy to access and disable.
A few late game areas wrap back around to connect to early game areas, but the majority of them sprawl out from Hotel Krat. The best comparison I can make is the way that multiple paths extend out from Dark Souls 2’s Majula. The sounds design is also great; I found myself slowly creeping down hallways, terrified of the faint gurgling or moaning that I heard fade in and out at the end of the hall, realizing that some monstrosity was patrolling near by and that I needed to make sure to arrive at the location when its back would be to me.
Speaking of sound though, Lies of P has quite a stellar soundtrack. Boss themes are booming, orchestral assaults that get your blood pumping (or possibly freezing). However, Lies of P’s most standout tracks are its area themes and the completely optional musical records that can be played in Hotel Krat. I don’t want to spoil too many of them, as I was absolutely taken aback when I first heard some of them. But there are a few that I would be remiss to not discuss. First would be the Estella Opera House’s theme. This piece is downright haunting and ethereal; the first time I heard it I had to set my controller down and just listen to it for a good fifteen minutes. I have been trying to find the name of the singer, however, I’ve had no such luck so far. Whoever she is, she is incredibly talented and has an incredible set of pipes.
Another piece I adore is Feel. This is one of the collectible musical records- which means some players may never hear this during their playthrough. And that is quite a shame, as it is a warm and heartfelt plea to be held in the arms of another. It’s such a comforting song in a game that’s filled with mostly intimidating and terrifying tracks. Thankfully, I can actually say who Feel’s beautiful voice belongs to: South Korean singer Seo Ja Yeong.
I think I’ve said enough though. I have my suspicions that Lies of P will become one of those games that I will never shut up about. It’s a worthy addition to the Souls-like genre that treads some familiar territory while also bringing plenty of its own unique offerings. It does have some rough spots, particularly regarding a few boss designs, but so many musical, gameplay, and story moments had my heart pounding in my chest. Quite similarly, I imagine, to how my Pinocchio’s mechanical heart finally pounded in his own chest.
9/10
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Lies of P is available to purchase on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It carries an ESRB rating of M for blood and violence.
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