NO SPOILERS
I had a Korean history professor who used to say a phrase: “Take a look at any Korean dish and you’ll see quickly that Koreans love to mix things.” She would make a violent stirring motion with her hands as she said this, absurd and delightful. As I played Lies of P, a debut single player title out of a previously unknown studio in South Korea, I can’t help but remember this anecdote. The game fan-dubbed as Bloodborne Pinocchio has clearly been crafted by mixing many identifiable yet incongruous ingredients. Such a concoction can be quite dangerous if not approached with insight and honesty, the two qualities the inspirational materials respectively vow to teach. Despite the dangers, Lies of P is the gamic equivalent of an exquisite plate of bibimbap made by a chef who understands every ingredient down to a tee.

With the prevalence of “souls-likes,” we find ourselves at a bit of a Turing Test of whether a game feels like it could have been made by Hidetaka Miyazaki and the FromSoft team or not. Perhaps the greatest risk of mimicking a generational masterpiece is that even a decent element feels like it falls short by comparison. For example, Lies of P’s story is suitably engaging and I found myself charmed with the variety of characters, but I can’t say that it had me enraptured in the way Bloodborne’s Lovecraftian lore did. Many of the (typically Western) games fail the Turing Test due to approaching the design problem without honesty and humility. They see a game like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, and although they have identified the apparent quality, are already racing to think of ways to improve it before understanding it. Haphazardly washing the careful balance with ill-fitting Western design tendencies results in something akin to tempura served in a cheeseburger.

I was afraid Lies of P would resemble its’ protagonist – a puppet with a hollow center, desperate to impress paternal inspirations, who can’t help but fall into derivative dishonesty – but thankfully, Lies of P stands out and passes the test with flying colors. The game is quite linear in a macro sense, associating it most closely to Dark Souls 3, but the individual areas have a variety of branching paths and looping, vertical structures. Where it surpasses the standard, however, is with a stellar combat engine. Lies of P takes the deflection-driven combat of Sekiro and merges it with the bloodthirsty trades of Bloodborne, resulting in a child that miraculously exceeds both parents. Pinocchio can choose to block an incoming hit and retain half the damage as retrievable gray health, dodge the hit entirely, or time a risky perfect block that whittles down enemy posture. An enemy with fully depleted posture can be hit with a charged heavy attack to deal massive damage, the equivalent of visceral attacks in Bloodborne. This marriage of disparate game designs turns Lies of P into a furious dance where every single enemy move becomes an interesting choice. As I run from one Gothic-themed level to the next, the moment to moment game design demonstrates careful and precise balance. More than anything, it highlights the developers’ understanding of both their own game and the games they take inspiration from.

Although he would be rushed out after 30 seconds by Geoff Keighley, I imagine that if Lies of P director Choi Ji Won was given an opportunity to accept an award, it would look very similar to Bong Joon Ho’s acceptance for Parasite in 2020. A beautiful expression of humility and gratitude to the masters of the medium. Indeed, the humility of the project is the greatest strength. Lies of P does not look to fix FromSoft, but to understand and refine their formula. This is a trait I deeply respect from these Korean developers and wonder if my American peers could ever look past their own hubris to replicate.

I can’t lie: in some part, I am biased for this cutesy-grimdark aesthetic. I wait with bated breath for their upcoming Alice in Wonderland-themed project.

No Spoilers
I really really wanted to love Alan Wake II, but ironically, I feel a little bit like Alan himself seeing the wave of critical praise this game has garnered. I just can't seem to see the beautiful, magnificent meta-textual masterpiece that everyone else is enamored with, and am left in the dark... place.

In concept, this is a game made exactly for my taste, but many of the executions fall unfortunately short of the promise showed by the premise. Every cool idea was only explored in the shallowest way, and the meta-textual element got more annoying as it went along. I'm a coffee-drinking, Pacific-Northwest-living, horror-media consuming freak, and even I could see right through the paper-thin facades.

The game's visuals are absolutely arresting and the mix of live action and CG graphics are interesting enough to almost be worth the price of admission. The survival gameplay is alright and inoffensive, although nowhere close to the standard set by Resident Evil 4 earlier this year. The star of the show is clearly the narrative but I never felt truly captivated by any character or theme. I can easily tell the story wants to be about art and death and the nature of storytelling itself; perhaps a million other things could also fall under Alan Wake II's thematic banner. I'm not allergic to this kind of thing either, and am an avid fan of all the Lynch and Film Noir inspirations that Remedy so gleefully remind you they take cues from. Alan Wake II forgets that the cool trippy metatextual stuff only works when built over a base of truthful and emotional storytelling. By the time they smashed the fourth wall and the author was well beyond dead, I didn't have any interest in solving the crime of who killed him.

Sad! One of my most anticipated of 2023. I hope others enjoyed it more than I did, and it seems that they have. Despite my criticisms, the one thing you can't say about Alan Wake II is that it's phoned in, and I appreciate that. Remedy set out to make the game that they wanted to make, and although it failed for me, I'm happy that they did.

Considered as a companion-piece to the 2005 original rather than a flat out replacement, I appreciate the chaotic approach to reinterpreting 4's groundbreaking combat sandbox. New knife is absolutely peak game design. Although I understand the complaints about headshot randomization making the game feel inconsistent, it adds enough interest to even out Leon's new mobility options. I don't know if it can hold a candle to the sheer ingenuity of the original (impossible bar) but Remake has many commendable ideas wholly of it's own. If the stated goal of RE4R is to adapt the original into a more mechanically-able Leon with a highly chaotic battlefield to contend with, I'd say they passed with higher than flying colors.