Note: I compare this game to Dark Souls and FromSoft's titles a lot in this, which I think is understandable, but I do want to shout out the developers here for making something than can stand alongside them. They deserve a huge amount of respect for, despite being very similar to Bloodborne in particular, did a wonderful job of making Lies of P their own thing and were able to carve out a unique piece of the soulslike pie.
Of all the soulslikes I’ve played, I think Lies of P comes the closest to nailing the FromSoft feel, and is by far the most playable and fun of all the ones I’ve tried.
It’s pretty blatantly a Souls game, almost more so than other soulslikes, even. From the second you start it’s immediate – it looks like Bloodborne, controls like Bloodborne, sounds like Bloodborne, and pretty much feels like Bloodborne too. Bloodborne feels a little snappier and more responsive, but Lies of P comes pretty damn close. It’s very impressive.
There’s a lot of different mechanics and upgrade trees for Pinocchio in this game, that help it stand out a little bit more from its inspiration. Aside from the typical weapon upgrades, Pinocchio’s grinder can be equipped with a special upgrade that either adds elemental effects or boosts your stats, he gains a magic cube that functions similarly to Elden Ring’s physicks, and the hilariously and wonderfully named P-Organ provides him with passive buffs.
Weapon customization is pretty cool too – you can mix and match blades and handles from any of the weapons you find, allowing you to really customize your special attacks and moveset to your liking. It’s unique and fun. I loved the Legion Arms – mechanical arms Pinocchio can swap out that provide different secondary weapons, from a string that pulls enemies towards you (or you towards them), to a powerful shield that can perfect parry any attack thrown at you. They’re really fun and varied and add a lot to the combat, I think.
As goofy as it is, I loved the story and presentation. Edgy Bloodborne Pinocchio is a concept that is really hard to take seriously, emphasized by the game’s goofy presentation such as the loading screen stating Now Lying…. It’s a hilariously dumb concept and I love that they treat it so seriously without a hint of irony. It feels like earnestness is so rare in games nowadays, so I found it really refreshing to see a silly concept take itself so seriously and honestly come up with a pretty compelling plot and world lore.
Combat has an emphasis on blocking and deflecting like Sekiro, but it never felt very consistent to me and the windows to parry are extremely strict, so I found myself more often than not just step-dodging most enemy attacks. I-frames during dodges are comparable to Bloodborne, so it’s manageable. Most of these soulslike games feel so slow and stiff, and it's nice how snappy Lies of P feels. Pinocchio controls well and you never feel like you're fighting against the game to play it. I fell naturally into controlling the game because it feels so similar to the FromSoft titles.
Level design is super solid, and enemy placement never feels cheap or intended to make the player rage (which the same can’t even be said for all of From’s Souls titles). Levels are pretty small and linear until the end, where Lies of P’s equivalent of Anor Londo is merged with its equivalent of Sen’s Fortress in an absolutely massive tower to ascend. A lot of the environments look straight out of Bloodborne, but it has a nice variety and many different locales to explore.
Boss fights are ok, I found most of them to be pretty basic and incredibly easy. I don’t know if it’s just my experience having played and beaten every FromSoft Souls, but I found Lies of P overall to be incredibly easy in comparison. The game is extremely generous with its checkpoints and picking what tough enemies don’t respawn upon death. The boss fights are really no exception, they’re either huge and slow, or human-sized but with low health and easily staggered. The last 3 bosses, with the true final boss in particular, are pretty tough fights and require you to fully learn all the mechanics at your disposal.
My biggest issue with the game is probably enemy variety – there’s like two categories of enemies, puppets and carcasses. There’s maybe 15 to 20 enemy types in the game, total. Doesn’t seem too bad but in a 20-30 hour action RPG you start seeing them over and over, and most of the enemy types are reserved for special non-respawning miniboss encounters. I know it’s impossible to expect From’s level of enemy variety from them, but maybe a 3rd class of enemy would have helped mix things up a little bit.
Is it perfect? No, but it’s absolutely the closest any developer has come to matching From’s Dark Souls games. It absolutely scratched the Dark Souls itch for me and I would genuinely recommend it to fans of the series. I look forward to the developer’s next game and hope they can build on this game’s strong foundation and make an even better soulslike next time.
Of all the soulslikes I’ve played, I think Lies of P comes the closest to nailing the FromSoft feel, and is by far the most playable and fun of all the ones I’ve tried.
It’s pretty blatantly a Souls game, almost more so than other soulslikes, even. From the second you start it’s immediate – it looks like Bloodborne, controls like Bloodborne, sounds like Bloodborne, and pretty much feels like Bloodborne too. Bloodborne feels a little snappier and more responsive, but Lies of P comes pretty damn close. It’s very impressive.
There’s a lot of different mechanics and upgrade trees for Pinocchio in this game, that help it stand out a little bit more from its inspiration. Aside from the typical weapon upgrades, Pinocchio’s grinder can be equipped with a special upgrade that either adds elemental effects or boosts your stats, he gains a magic cube that functions similarly to Elden Ring’s physicks, and the hilariously and wonderfully named P-Organ provides him with passive buffs.
Weapon customization is pretty cool too – you can mix and match blades and handles from any of the weapons you find, allowing you to really customize your special attacks and moveset to your liking. It’s unique and fun. I loved the Legion Arms – mechanical arms Pinocchio can swap out that provide different secondary weapons, from a string that pulls enemies towards you (or you towards them), to a powerful shield that can perfect parry any attack thrown at you. They’re really fun and varied and add a lot to the combat, I think.
As goofy as it is, I loved the story and presentation. Edgy Bloodborne Pinocchio is a concept that is really hard to take seriously, emphasized by the game’s goofy presentation such as the loading screen stating Now Lying…. It’s a hilariously dumb concept and I love that they treat it so seriously without a hint of irony. It feels like earnestness is so rare in games nowadays, so I found it really refreshing to see a silly concept take itself so seriously and honestly come up with a pretty compelling plot and world lore.
Combat has an emphasis on blocking and deflecting like Sekiro, but it never felt very consistent to me and the windows to parry are extremely strict, so I found myself more often than not just step-dodging most enemy attacks. I-frames during dodges are comparable to Bloodborne, so it’s manageable. Most of these soulslike games feel so slow and stiff, and it's nice how snappy Lies of P feels. Pinocchio controls well and you never feel like you're fighting against the game to play it. I fell naturally into controlling the game because it feels so similar to the FromSoft titles.
Level design is super solid, and enemy placement never feels cheap or intended to make the player rage (which the same can’t even be said for all of From’s Souls titles). Levels are pretty small and linear until the end, where Lies of P’s equivalent of Anor Londo is merged with its equivalent of Sen’s Fortress in an absolutely massive tower to ascend. A lot of the environments look straight out of Bloodborne, but it has a nice variety and many different locales to explore.
Boss fights are ok, I found most of them to be pretty basic and incredibly easy. I don’t know if it’s just my experience having played and beaten every FromSoft Souls, but I found Lies of P overall to be incredibly easy in comparison. The game is extremely generous with its checkpoints and picking what tough enemies don’t respawn upon death. The boss fights are really no exception, they’re either huge and slow, or human-sized but with low health and easily staggered. The last 3 bosses, with the true final boss in particular, are pretty tough fights and require you to fully learn all the mechanics at your disposal.
My biggest issue with the game is probably enemy variety – there’s like two categories of enemies, puppets and carcasses. There’s maybe 15 to 20 enemy types in the game, total. Doesn’t seem too bad but in a 20-30 hour action RPG you start seeing them over and over, and most of the enemy types are reserved for special non-respawning miniboss encounters. I know it’s impossible to expect From’s level of enemy variety from them, but maybe a 3rd class of enemy would have helped mix things up a little bit.
Is it perfect? No, but it’s absolutely the closest any developer has come to matching From’s Dark Souls games. It absolutely scratched the Dark Souls itch for me and I would genuinely recommend it to fans of the series. I look forward to the developer’s next game and hope they can build on this game’s strong foundation and make an even better soulslike next time.
Jacob
7 months ago