I feel crazy with this one. I keep hearing people calling it the first soulslike to rival From Software’s games, and… I just don’t see it? This still was a very mediocre experience. Yes, this is probably the only soulslike that comes close to doing things that Fromsoft are doing in their games at their level, but that says more about the priorities and quality of most other soulslikes than of Lies of P’s good qualities. Mind you, this is an okay, competently made game, with an interesting idea for a narrative, but it’s not even close to Fromsoft level. It feels like a retread of everything I have seen in From’s games, but on a smaller scale and in a less interesting way. There’s the regenerating health from Bloodborne, there’s the prosthetic arm from Sekiro, there’s modular weapons mechanic that’s reminiscent of Bloodborne, there's a gothic Victorian city from Bloodborne. But unlike those games, this game doesn’t have some kind of idea upon which everything is built. It isn't focused around parrying like Sekiro, or aggressiveness like Bloodborne, or RPG customizability like Dark Souls. It tries to do all those things a little bit, and ends up doing all of them mediocrely.

And the overall quality of the game is not on a very good level. Level design is unimaginative and too formulaic, writing and voice acting feels stiff and boring, art direction is unimpressive, combat is just okay. Final nail in the coffin of my playthrough was bosses - they are so focused on being crushingly punishing and difficult, that it stops being fun. Lies of P overall is focused on precision on the player's part way too much. It’s like this game doesn’t understand its own inspiration - where in Dark Souls hard difficulty was there to cloak players in a dreadful and suspenseful atmosphere, there it feels like the bosses are hard just for the sake of it. Like the game feels pressured to have bosses that are harder than that of its competitors, just for the sake of it. Of course, it’s good to make a game that focuses on different things than your inspiration. But this game doesn’t feel like it focuses on anything in particular, or like it has any certain vision. It feels like Lies of P game design is purely reactionary to its contemporaries in the “soulslike” genre and “git gud” culture that’s formed around them.

By the time I finished writing this I feel like maybe I’m focused too much on comparisons to From’s games and being too reductive, but I think this game justifies it - it's just too derivative and too stale. I find nothing of note to say about its positive qualities except that it’s just a competent videogame.

i thought we all agreed these kinds of games didnt need a reload?
game kinda blows, dropped at the end of chapter 1. reload is fucking ANNOYING and lead to many of my deaths. the level design is a fucking trainwreck 99% of the time. i cant even count the amount of times i got lost walking in circles and backtracking on accident while the stupid skull fuck kept telling me to hurry. the difficulty spikes in this game are absurd, one second its too easy the next youre locked in a room and expected to kill 50000 enemies with almost no health drops. i really dislike the way the chainsword locks on, it feel and looks very jank. its also generally not a tool worth using since the animation lock is so brutal, i only used it here and there for mobility since the F keys dash was useless. the weapons felt really nice, and i appreciate no hitscan but swapping weapons SUCKS, especially since you can equip weapons with no ammo. this game it too fast paced to have shit like that, i also died plenty of times trying to find the weapon i wanted. the music and aesthetic of this game are fantasitc but i hate most of the rest of it so i dont really see a point in pushing through when the game peaked in the intro cinematic

Played just under 2 hours and while it certainly isn't terrible (really enjoyed the presentation and the guns felt good to shoot), there was something off about the gameplay. Surviving hordes of enemies at the end of a mission where they spawn in gradually with no real indicator of progress felt bad. You just had a mark at the top of the screen saying Purge the Heretics, and had to shoot the same enemies spawning in for what always felt like an excessive period of time. When I think back to why Doom worked for me it was frequently the level design that gripped me. In Boltgun, at least from what I played, it never felt all that fun to explore. Just walking down hallways shooting really easy to kill AI. If it gets better that's great, but after two short sessions I've felt no desire to revisit this game.

Late to the party from its entry into early access back during the boomer shooter revival, Wrath was well worth the wait in spite of a few setbacks.

The Great
Wrath's sheer atmosphere and sense of scale is unparalleled for a game in its genre. Levels are huge, often broken up into several distinct segments, and the sheer artistry at play with its designs and architecture are something to behold. The game's low-poly 3D style and colorful textures paint a vivid masterpiece every ten minutes that you can't help but stop to admire. The game has three hub worlds, each with entirely distinct themes that give the player the feeling of traveling to ethereal, ancient worlds. Movement is ace in this game as well, thanks to a great sense of momentum.

The Good
While the game is built on a modified version of the original Quake engine, the game's combat pace has its own, unique flow. You will be bobbing and weaving between showers of projectiles just as often as you're backing away from hyper-aggressive melee attackers and walking around mines. Your weapons are fairly lethal, though larger enemies require you to mix and match your arsenal to take down quickly. Most fights can kill you in seconds if you aren’t crafty. Added into the mix are a set of inventory items, similar to the trappings available in Heretic. These artifacts are far more limited in availability, but can make an otherwise hopeless situation trivial with strategic use. The selection wheel slows down time while active, which makes them easy and convenient to use. Each episode also contains special powerup gates, which grant the player a unique ability to help traverse the map for a limited time. The game has a unique saving system as well, with a limited save item used in combination with checkpoint altars that keeps the action engaging as you progress through a map. The saving system can be disabled in favor of traditional quicksaves, if preferred.

The Bad
As beautiful as Wrath’s sprawling environments may be, the game heavily suffers from the lack of any kind of automap system. Certain levels, especially those taking place in catacombs and tombs, can be outright hellish to navigate without any way to track your progress. As dense as these levels are, I found myself taking breaks periodically throughout single levels, only to have to re-learn the map’s layout by the time I came back to it. Every now and then, especially in the third episode, there might be one specific path in a room of four that I’d overlook and end up circling around the map over and over until I noticed it. Either an automap or a guidance system like in Elden Ring or Quake 2’s remaster would alleviate this frustration. The soundtrack (or lack thereof) is another mildly low point for me. A lot of it is haunting ambience - which sets the mood well for when you’re exploring, but in the thick of combat with enemies surrounding you some of the thrill is lost without any sort of music to accompany the combat. Finally, I found the journal to be rather underwhelming. The Bestiary and Weapons pages only offer artwork, without any sort of notes or descriptions.

The Ugly
The controller support in this game feels very primitive by today’s standards. There’s no ability to remap your buttons, with only a few presets on offer instead. More damning is the lack of a weapon wheel - which has proven to be an absolute necessity for games like this with large arsenals and frantic combat. Something to be aware of if you plan on playing on Steam Deck, or just using a controller in general.

In Conclusion
Wrath is an incredible tribute to the art of level design, made up of a unique blend of gameplay elements that kept me coming back time after time until the end. It feels like a modern spiritual successor to the original Quake, and that alone should tell you everything you need to know. Easy recommendation, even if it can feel a little rough around the edges.

A creative and fun platformer. I like it’s characters, it’s soundtrack, it’s self aware, meta humour, it’s ability to keep subverting my expectations, and all the little retroactive connections with Sea of Stars, having played that first. It begins to somewhat lose me after the halfway point and the big twist, which is a shame because I knew about it going in and I thought that would be when the game really clung to me. Instead I just found it became more of a slog, I was definitely hoping to see more bosses, more power-ups, just more to see and do in general.