Games worth discovering

Lies of P may be a little too much like Bloodborne, but it still has thrills of its own

2K View2023-09-14

Lies of P

9.0

Action

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SHOULD I PLAY LIES OF P?

Play it if you’re a Soulsborne fan or are ready for a stiff challenge. Lies of P uses the classic children’s story of Pinocchio as a jumping-off point for developer Neowiz’s fanciful take on Bloodborne. While the game initially feels perhaps too reliant on Bloodborne, its setting and slick execution give it enough juice to make it gratifyingly unique.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played four hours of Lies of P. In that time, I’ve defeated the first two bosses, found a few new weapons, and reached the hub area at the Hotel Krat, which operates like the Hunter’s Dream from Bloodborne. I’ve upgraded main character P to level 20 and found some cool new gear that slots into his left “Legion” arm, which works similarly to the Shinobi prosthetic in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I’ve also found P’s makeshift father, Geppetto, who’s instructed me to clear the violent puppets out of City Hall.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT LIES OF P?

• Solid Soulslike action. Just being a “Soulslike” game isn’t enough, obviously—many games have tried to copy From Software’s signature formula of bonfire-style checkpoints, currency that drops when you die, and brutal boss fights. Lies of P is the vanishingly rare Soulslike game that manages to stand up to the comparison to the originals. While I didn’t think the combat in Lies of P was quite as polished or satisfying as FromSoft’s, it’s an impressively decent imitation that had me eager to rush back to a boss arena after I died due to mistiming a dodge or parry one too many times.

• Grimdark Pinocchio is actually cool. Every version of Pinocchio I’ve ever seen has had a pretty dark streak to it, whether it’s Disney’s 1940 feature or Guillermo del Toro’s hand-animated stop-motion version that came out last year. Lies of P leans heavily into that dark side, placing the traditional characters in a steampunk Victorian city somewhere in Europe that’s facing a revolt from the mechanical puppets created to perform menial labor. So yes, it’s technically about Pinocchio, and lying or not lying is a narrative mechanic I ran into, but there’s also a heavy dose of Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick in this version of the story.

• Interesting gear options. Lies of P felt restrictive at first when it came to picking a combat class: There are three to choose from, all focused on sword fighting, each with a different combination of dexterity and strength. However, once I got a few hours into the game, I discovered that each weapon had two components—a handle and blade—and that these could eventually be mixed and matched to produce combinations with new effects. Once I started finding handles and blades for weapons that had special effects like electricity or bludgeoning damage, I started imagining how I might cobble together the perfect sword for each situation.

• Gorgeous visuals. Lies of P looks great from top to bottom. The puddles and cobblestones of the streets shine in the rain and moonlight, and beautifully illustrated Victorian-style billboards can be found on the rooftops, often serving as makeshift walkways over three-story gaps. The puppet automaton enemies all look like toy soldiers, and have an unsetting herky-jerky quality to their movement that makes them feel like they’ve been brought to artificial life by some kind of malevolent energy. Faces and costumes for human characters have a kind of gauzy, dithered cast to them, but they still look terrific on screen.

• Yup, it’s hard. Lies of P is happy to dish out the pain in the form of big, menacing puppets that can pulverize P in a matter of seconds. If I wasn’t careful, the big policeman puppet I met in a couple places would wallop me before I could get a hit in, and there’s another large muscular goon I encountered a couple times whose powerful left hook forced me to keep my distance. P is nimble on his feet though, so by watching these enemies’ moves, I could carefully dart in and land a daring stab with my rapier while I waited for the right opportunity to let loose with a more powerful flurry of attacks.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT LIES OF P?

• Maybe a bit too much like the Soulsbornes sometimes. Look, I’m firmly in the camp of giving credit where it’s due, and making a game that’s clearly inspired by Bloodborne but doesn’t feel like a cheap knockoff is hard to do. That said, there are areas in Lies of P where Neowiz has been way too slavish in retracing FromSoft’s footsteps, such as in the character menu and level up screens, how damage scaling is calculated and communicated to players, and in the way item descriptions are written.

These stylistic choices are FromSoftware’s calling card, and don’t really impact the core mechanics of the game—and yet Lies of P reproduces almost all of them rather than leaning into its own unique setting. This extends to some of the boss fights: There’s one I encountered near the end of my sessions with the game called the Mad Donkey who is very similar to Dark Souls’s Havel the Rock.

• Bosses feel like damage sponges. I’ve fought a few pretty tough enemies in Lies of P, and all of them started out feeling very cool but wore out their welcome due to massive HP pools. In a couple cases they became a test of whether I would simply not screw something up for five minutes in a row, which is just a much less interesting experience than when I was having new things thrown at me.

💬 Are you prepared to fib your way through the city of Krat alongside the swashbuckling P, or are Soulslikes not really your thing? Let me know in the comments!