TaigaStorm
1 review liked by TaigaStorm
Lies of P
2023
This game rocks. It takes a little bit of getting use to at first, but once you get the hand of the perfect blocks it starts to feel really satisfying. I played a combination Advance/Motivity build so I avoided dodging and focused mostly on blocking and following up with strong attacks. There's some cruft for sure, like some of the bosses have unblockable and not uniquely telegraphed grabs which suck, and some of the bosses despite my heavy resistance stats still hit like a freight truck. Actually, in general the Bosses are crushingly difficult. The late game has, outside of maybe one boss that I beat my second time, several bosses that took me more than 5, and in some cases up to 15 tries to beat. All in all though, I don't think the bosses are poorly designed, they're learnable for sure, and their attacks are for the most part, telegraphed well.
It's obvious though that this game gets something other souls-likes don't, which is that the level design is just as important as the combat. Every zone twists and turns and loops back on itself and is full of traps and ambushes that make most engagements feel interesting and unique. Unlike souls as well the game will give you little icons to let you know when you have items to advance questlines. That's not to say that the game will hand you the questlines on a silver platter. I finished the game and missed the achievements for completing more than a few.
Despite only having 3 real enemy classes, this game still manages to boast a lot of variety of enemy design, and the enemies look novel. I think the puppet/machine designs do a lot here because the ball joints and cylindrical plating make them distinctly mechanized, but not overly complicated. You'll end up fighting a lot of the same enemies over and over again, but they have access to new weapons, and are usually supplemented with more unique enemies that break it up such that the simpler enemies are mostly there for ambushes and traps. It's genuinely very well thought out and feels like every encounter was designed intentionally.
I definitely would play another game by this team and I hope that Lies of P is successful and leads to a greater budget because I think with a bigger budget their next game could be even better.
It's obvious though that this game gets something other souls-likes don't, which is that the level design is just as important as the combat. Every zone twists and turns and loops back on itself and is full of traps and ambushes that make most engagements feel interesting and unique. Unlike souls as well the game will give you little icons to let you know when you have items to advance questlines. That's not to say that the game will hand you the questlines on a silver platter. I finished the game and missed the achievements for completing more than a few.
Despite only having 3 real enemy classes, this game still manages to boast a lot of variety of enemy design, and the enemies look novel. I think the puppet/machine designs do a lot here because the ball joints and cylindrical plating make them distinctly mechanized, but not overly complicated. You'll end up fighting a lot of the same enemies over and over again, but they have access to new weapons, and are usually supplemented with more unique enemies that break it up such that the simpler enemies are mostly there for ambushes and traps. It's genuinely very well thought out and feels like every encounter was designed intentionally.
I definitely would play another game by this team and I hope that Lies of P is successful and leads to a greater budget because I think with a bigger budget their next game could be even better.