I've fully completed RoR1 twice, once in the original 2013 release and again several years later on the switch port. Didn't really follow RoRR announcments and I kind of expected it to be just a visual touch up and a new online system that wasn't a nightmare to deal with. But wow, I'm blown away. The environmental spritework is so gorgeous, there are tons of new items, encounters, a whole challenge mode full of custom maps and unique tasks, reworked survivors and even new ones. I'm super pumped to go through this whole game AGAIN. Way more than I expected.

Came back to this after seeing some kind of big patch/console release. Hadn't touched it in a few years and WOW. This quietly became one of the nicest and well polished arcade rhythm games I've ever played. So much style and charm in every single ounce of it. A rhythm game made by rhythm games fans for rhythm game fans. The only negative I can say is that if you aren't super into electronic music the default soundtrack doesn't offer much else, but it's a PC rhythm game and you can use spinshare for customs.

Look I'm going to be real, I actually really like the game that is here. I loved Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, a game where you use weird, ugly little living creatures as weapons and got a bunch of power ups while taking out bounties. And that's exactly what High on Life is! The weapons are fun, the powers are fun, the maps are varied and cool.

The issue lies in, well, the whole selling point of the game. The "jokes" are annoying, unfunny, and incessant. Even after I turned all of the extraneous dialogue down I could hardly tell a difference because it's ALL THE TIME. Moving a quest forward is abysmally slow because of how much riffing they have to do.

I did laugh a bit during the time I played it, but it has nothing to do with the script. Some of the performances got a chuckle out of me, particularly a couple of Zach Hadel's deliveries. The RedLetterMedia commentary track of "Demon Wind" also got me pretty hard, and if I'm honest, the main reason I even installed the game.

I understand how stupid it sounds to say "I wish there was no Justin Roiland in the Justin Roiland video game" but I never expected to see a spiritual successor to Stranger's Wrath. I don't even know anyone else who ever played that. So all I see here is wasted potential.

I have played exactly 2 good non-Fromsoft developed soulslikes, this, and NOSE. Both of them realize what makes the formula work and takes whole-heatedly from them and aren't shy about it. Too often I feel people making a soulslike use it as a marketing point to get an audience but then none of what I would actually want from one is in the game. This was not the case in Lies of P. I don't know how else to say it, but the last couple Fromsoft titles have felt soulless to me. DS3 was "okay", Sekiro was fine but not for me, and Elden Ring was a massive disappointment. Lies of P has that soul.

I wanted a labyrinthine, brutal, fast-paced action RPG from the game that looked like legally ambiguous Bloodborne, and that's exactly what I got and then some. Everything felt right. The world, the movement, the sidequests, the gameplay loop, it was all perfect. The biggest difference came in the combat, but it wasn't necessarily a negative difference. I love the trick weapons in Bloodborne. It's my favorite iteration of combat Fromsoft has done in those games; fast, fluid, and combo centric. Lies of P does not have trick weapons (well, except for one) but it does offer it's own unique tools to play with. You're able to swap handles and blades on weapons, allowing you to use the quick, agile moveset of a dagger, for instance, but replace the normally short blade with a greatsword blade, slowing the moveset down a little, but retaining the relative agile nature the dagger while giving you much more range. Experimenting with this mechanic was a lot of fun, though I wound up using boss weapons for the majority of my playthrough. (I finished the game using the Two Dragons Sword, which honestly might be my favorite weapon in ANY Soulslike game, including Fromsoft ones.) You also get a Sekiro style robot arm with mulitple swappable abilities, though I didn't find myself using it all that much. I tried the gun arm which helped for stage play, and swapped to the grapple arm for boss fight mobility, but again, didn't really find a need to use it.

And the reason I didn't find a need to use it that often was because of what's maybe my favorite addition Lies of P added to the formula, the P Organ system, which acts as a sort of skill tree system for character progression. My least favorite part of a Souls game is how character building typically boils down to finding a weapon you like, then dumping stats into whatever it scales with the best, then dumping into stamina and HP. With the P Organ system I actively developed and evolved how I was playing the game based on what became available to me. I was happy with my Booster Glaive and dumping all my points into Technique because that's what I was used to. But when I saw some of the P Organ skills, like higher stagger when attacking from behind, or increased Fable (Lies of P's form of DS3 Weapon Arts) on perfect guard, I wanted to move into a more agile play style, swapping to lighter weapon to stay mobile and focusing on parries. I continued to adapt and change and wound up playing the game pretty differently every 8-10 hours or so. It was a lot of fun and super refreshing!

Most surprisingly of all, I didn't hate the story? Like I went in assuming the Pinocchio thing was mostly a gimmick but really loved the way they approached the subject of what makes us human and found it rather poignant at times. That being said, the story is also where most of my complaints regarding the game come in, namely, certain characters writing (pretty much just Gemini that cricket fuck) and a lot of the voicework which I found varied between subpar and outright distracting.

Oh, and slight aside that only really matters because of how bad Fromsoft has screwed up PC releases but Lies of P runs incredibly well with no configuration. Defaulted to high everything, ran at 144 with zero hitching or slowdown. I was thoroughly impressed.

I played this on Gamepass, which I normally don't like to do. I like to pay and own for games but I really thought this game was going to be bad and tried it mainly for a laugh. I absolutely plan to pick the game up on Steam later on because I want to 100% this. I want to play through with tons of builds, I want to see every outcome of every sidequest, see every ending, see every secret. And if the teaser at the end of the game ever comes to fruition I will be playing it day 1.

I feel like Void Strangers releasing earlier this year really spoiled me and I'll never see puzzle games the same way going forward. I do not see why this game is getting so much praise. I don't really know how to say this without sounding like a jackass but I do not understand how this is being called the smartest and best puzzle game of the year when there are NO puzzles. I did not think about my actions ONCE. You move from point A to point B grabbing orbs and using interactables and I felt like I had no agency in the solutions; they were just right in front of me. The art and music are both top notch, creating a tremendous sense of mystery and awe which makes the tedium and banality of the gameplay only sting more. Like I guess if you just want to get blitzed and vibe and sink into the couch and see cool shit as sweeping synth pads wash over you without having to do much, you'll really have a good time? But otherwise I think it's just 3 hours better spent doing anything else.

Yeah I kept telling myself I was going to go back to this but it has been months now so I'm just gonna talk about it. I'm not saying dumbass shit like "not my final fantasy" because I think that's ignorant. People saying that should go play literally any other of the plethora of turn based rpg's that are coming out. We're in another golden age for that genre if you go looking for it (but no, you just want to play the one series you already know and then call a genre dead.)

That being said, they really flubbed the execution on this one. I feel like I was swindled. They pushed that they were including all of these accessories to make it more accessible because it was going to be so challenging and action packed (at points saying that you can ridicule your favorite streamers for using them which is just baffling and honestly offensive to me that they would even joke about that under the guise that they're accessibility features) and then deliver a character action game with a super fun move set with nothing fun to use it on!! What the hell were they thinking! None of the combat encounters are even remotely challenging or interesting and honestly put me to sleep. No incentive for being stylish or keeping combos going or scoring high and no hard mode until you complete the whole ass game!! You might say "well they aren't making Devil May Cry, they're making Final Fantasy" then why the hell was one of their main selling points the fact that they hired Ryota Suzuki as a designer?

I don't have much to say on the story, it's pretty whatever, I'm not the biggest fan of Kazutoyo Maehiro and his stories or how he treats women. The whole debacle about them not including black people and then the game being about slavery is uhhhhhh not a good look (but what do I expect from the people who continue to make Y'shtola whiter with every expansion.)

But I wasn't looking forward to this game for the story! I was looking forward to a character action game! The game looks good, music is good, there's just generally a real quality to everything which is what makes this sting so hard. If they put out a patch where I can just switch to hard mode I'll give it another go to at least see it through to the end, but right now, I'd much rather spend my time with other things.

One of the better retro royale styled games. Not as good as Tetris 99, better than Pac-man or Mario 35. F-Zero X had a battle royale mode in it anyway, the high octane, violent, boost/energy balance nature of F-Zero fits the genre great! I wish that the races kept going until 1 person was standing, though, instead of ending like a normal race. They add a bunch of obstacles anyway, why not keep amping it up! trailing 1 person on Death Wind for like, 2 and a half minutes for the win would've been super hype. Still, enjoy how they set it up and I like the customization and all of the old comic art in the UI and menus! More F-Zero please!