This was my first ever souls-like, and it was a great experience. I don't normally like to play games that are difficult mechanically (more of a story/mental strategy player), but I found the flexibility of LIes of P's combat (ability to put different movesets on different weapons, legion arms allowing different playstyles, P-organ upgrades enabling non-parry viability for the noobs like me) to be challenging but not demoralizing. I had absolutely no problems with things I've seen the game criticized for (such as delayed attacks), but that might be because I don't have any experience with other styles. I thought the story was actually pretty interesting, and overall, this is a game I am sure I will complete at least two more times to get all three endings. Highly encourage people who may be hesitant about souls-likes to start here.

Tails of Iron has a wonderful art style and clean mechanics, but the pacing suffers from multiple quests that have you going back and forth between areas. There is no way to, for instance, activate multiple side quests in an area so you can go do them all at once. You have to complete one, go back to the quest board and select another, then go do that one, then repeat. Still giving this 3.5 rather than 3 because I enjoyed it thoroughly (even with some frustration at the back and forth) and plan on playing it through again on the Hard Mode. If you see the "difficult game" tag or something like it, yes this has souls-like mechanics to it, but the normal mode is actually very forgiving (and there is an easier story mode if you want to play just for that). I am very new to souls likes, and most bosses did not cause me too much difficulty. You become more powerful very quickly, and the enemies' moves are pretty well-telegraphed, and there are color queues for when to dodge or parry (which has the most generous window I've ever played with). If you want to play for the lovely art, music, and more, don't be intimidated by the standard normal mode difficulty. Powered through this game in about 10 hours (all achievements except the one you need to do in Bloody Whiskers - hard - mode).