New Game Plus finished, my opinion has not changed from my first review. The story is just incompetent.

The Final Fantasy series really needs it's own "Resident Evil 7 Biohazard" what i mean by that is that it really needs to return to what people liked about the old games. Like with how RE7 is a return to survival horror like the old games but with a twist of it being first person, Final Fantasy should return to more traditional turn base combat with a fresh gimmick to differentiate from the other games.

The problem with action rpg Final Fantasy games is that they just do a horrible job balancing rpg mechanics and action gameplay. FF16 for example, your level does not matter at all because it feels more like a story progress meter than your character's progression. You don't have an rpg, you just have dmc 5 on training wheels

This game also shares the same problem with western games being that they use the awful (grey, green, blue, purple, and gold) loot system. You don't have to pay attention to stats, its just higher the number the better.

“The people who built this world intended it to be better for you, but they failed. It is easier to live in their failure with this by your side.”
[It’s real tell her.]
“This is not a childish fantasy. It can be a real weapon against what’s coming for you now.”
“What’s coming for me?”
“Nothing as long as you have this [Hands her their discarded tape recorder]”

Through the steady decay of a failed revolution, the spread of rot reaches a land birthed by the will of all of it’s people. A Communist Revolution, the last of its kind, was snuffed out by imperialists against the philosophy in Revachol. The war singed the culture of Revachol, scarring them, and leaving people willing to pick up the scraps.
No matter the ideology because of the complexity of the issues surrounding Revachol, every encounter almost meets a selfish action, characters react to the heavy circumstances around them, even the protagonists. The desire and preservation of self is core to the story of the protagonist, found in the remnants of the communist regime, and rooted even within the fascist oppression of Revachol. From the day to day challenge of the world around them to the conflict of war, preservation is gripped until the end. The bizarre protagonist is baffling to Revachol, as he has no sense or remnant of self. Gazing into a mirror is deeply suffocating, treating it as a decision where you can no longer go back. It is the first step to remind him of his origin, his origin it almost strangles him to understand. The protagonist Harry’s self remembrance circulates from the bitter taste of his policing, the absurd persona of his party loving rockstar, or the gentle and sorry reactions to the cruel inevitability of his desire for progress. While DE gives you plenty of facets of a person to role play, I personally tried to rehabilitate Harry, avoiding cruelty and bigotry. The world around him is glint with hope. Like the people of this decomposed city could rise into something meaningful. There is a heavy melancholy in Disco Elysium. There is almost a dreadful acceptance it will steadily derive any say it’s citizens have in it’s government. Even with all of those burdens there is just a deep love for Revachol, a desire to endure, that possessiveness of that city so intense it birthed a war for it’s political freedom, is still there. Through a woman who lost her husband to alcoholism, a dream of playing music made from trees, a girl playing with a stuffed lamb, and a detective who learns to confront his trauma, regardless of the relentless taxing burdens of this world, hope is just as inevitable as the grip of politics.
The irony of the communist state mandated police feels like the best way to play this game. Just like people it’s boundless and absurd. There’s a wonderment to Disco Elysium, while your partner, Kim tends to reign in Harry and be logical, acting far more accepting to preserve at least the safety of citizens in society, Harry can be a far more free spirit. He believes in baffling things, he finds conflict and peace in fanaticism. He has idealized fantasies that he isn’t necessarily supposed to grow out of. He’s can be someone who wants people to be happy even not playing by the books, he wants citizens to prosper. His politics and morals, flexible beliefs, dismissal of the law through it all builds his own Elysium in his mind, while all of it can’t just come true, it brings him comfort. It defines who he is, it defines humans. The self is confusing, fragile, and illogical. Self is built through both beliefs, how they conflict with reality, and how they endure with reality. Harry regains and redefines himself, he learns to embrace himself again, he isn’t someone to idolize, he and all of Revachol is human. He is Revachol itself.

Edit 3/29/24: Reduced to 7. Too formulaic, especially in level design. Souls stuff continues to sour on me.
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Probably the funniest game this year. A ridiculous dark fantasy Pinocchio setting is played completely straight and infused so deeply with all the modern Fromsoft trappings that it almost comes across to my bitter heart as parody. Everything from general game structure, to the level up lady in the hub zone you warp to, down to even individual animation cadences, is lifted wholesale.

If that's the setup, then the punchline is that Lies of P is better mechanically than everything it's ripping off. For a more exhaustive overview, check out this writeup, but let me throw some out myself:

* You can restore lost HP by attacking, like in Bloodborne, but only the chip damage from blocking
* The mana used for weapon arts from DS3/ER is gained by hitting enemies
* If you are out of Estus flasks, you can gain another by hitting enemies
* Enemies can be "posture-broken" through perfect guards and damage, but to actually trigger the downed status you must land a charged heavy attack
* Parrying and dedicated ranged weapons have been completely removed (these systems have always been broken and/or cheesy in Souls)
* Red attacks cannot be iframed or blocked, and must be perfect guarded or outpositioned

The general flow of the game is: perfect guard on predictable attacks that are easily timed, block or dodge when you are unsure, and try to outposition and attack when possible to restore guard chip and land charged heavies. Red attacks are a somewhat natural extension to this dynamic, in that they encourage you to anticipate them and get out of the way, which is really what you should be doing for a lot of attacks. There's no need to play this like a parry simulator, and the fun of the game is in trying not to!

The best examples of this are the large bosses, who generally offer a lot of options for getting in hits during strings. My favorite is the Green Monster, whose AI can be somewhat predicted based on spacing and whose attacks have a lot of different arcs and blind spots to consider, almost like a weird Souls-ified Valstrax from Monster Hunter.

That being said, this is still a Sekiro-brained game at its core; you've gotta be buying what they're selling, even if this is a far better implementation than its inspiration. Occasionally the devs will fully succumb to the evil whisperings of the Sekiro demon on their shoulder, and use heavy tracking and obtuse timings to force brute memorization. A few red attacks in particular (Black Rabbit eldest, Laxasia) earned disapproving glares from me for this.

I was going to comment on weapon systems, level design, etc. but honestly you should just read that writeup from before.

Let me make a general point about the Souls series. The selling point for me is their holistic quality: they do a bunch of things passably and a few things well, but combine them into a greater cohesive whole. Dark Souls 1 is an insanely flawed game, more than most would admit, but the way the world design, level design, resource management, and themes wrap into each other makes me willing to overlook a lot of issues. Later Fromsoft Souls-type games are frustrating to me because they place an emphasis on combat that the mechanics aren't strong enough to support, while either failing to improve the persistent shortcomings of other elements or outright regressing in them.

Lies of P is nice because it improves the combat enough to justify a Dark Souls 3/Sekiro balance to me, while everything else is at least good enough. Bosses in Souls type games are pale shadows of Monster Hunter fights, and player toolkits and expressivity are pale shadows of Nioh 2; I would even say those games are "better," because I value their excellence in those single areas enough to overlook their flaws. But Lies of P is a solid, respectable, enjoyable overall package that actually iterates on its inspirations. It's fun!