Lies of P Shows What it Really Means to be a Soulslike
Who knew that Pinocchio and Bloodborne would mesh so well together?
Lies of P is a self-proclaimed Soulslike, and the inspiration is made very clear from the start where P, the main character, wakes up alone on a train. The general aesthetic of the demo area is reminiscent of Bloodborne’s Yharnam, with tight cobblestone streets littered with corpses, collapsed carriages, and an overall cramped feeling upon awakening. Other details like the menu layouts and general UI are in the same vein as well. While these similarities are clear, there’s no harm in them due to the game’s nature to create a distinct flavor as the player spends more time in Krat, the fictional European city where the game centers itself. The Stargazer acts as this game’s bonfire/lamp/site of grace, allowing the player to rest there away from harm and regain their lost health and recharge their Pulse Cells, this game’s healing item that the player is equipped with from the beginning. Pulse Cells are more similar to Estus Flasks in the sense that the player only has a small number of them at a time, but have a unique ability to be recharged without visiting a Stargazer if the player does enough damage to enemies while they’re out. This only recharges one Pulse Cell, but the incentive to keep engaging rather than turn tail and retreat to the most recent Stargazer is nice. Furthermore, the Stargazer isn’t where the player can level up, but rather only with Sophia at Hotel Krat, this game’s version of a Firekeeper and hub area respectively.
Upon my first time hearing about Lies of P, I wrote it off as another cool indie game that I probably wouldn’t show any interest in — ‘Pinocchio meets Bloodborne’ makes for a weird tagline after all, and I’ve never finished ant of the FromSoft games I’ve started. I was happy to see how seriously this game takes itself with this premise. The lore of this world is built on the story of Pinoccio and how that went on to inspire generations of inventors who aspired to create their own living dolls, and how something in the puppets awoke and led to the near downfall of humanity. Puppets are made with four core rules, and it’s our character’s ability to lie that separates them from being considered just a puppet. Characters like Gepetto, Jiminy (spelled ‘Gemini’ in-game), and The Blue Fairy (Sophia) all make their appearances in this game in roles similar to their roles in the original fairy tale, and I applaud this with how interesting it was to research the story and find all of the consistent references. Aside from these, the game does a wonderful job at making it clear how integral puppets were to Krat. Small lore blurbs speak to the industrial revolution of automatons, enemies are designed to look like security guards, station masters, circus entertainers, boxing dummies that hit back, and other roles that could easily be replaced with machines to make human life more convenient. Their movements are much more stiff and mechanical than P’s which highlights the difference between the two.
This demo acts as a tutorial and does so exceedingly well. In around six hours of gameplay I was given access to four different weapons, elemental attacks, different stat builds to pick from the beginning that can be played with through leveling up, multiple areas, bosses, mini-bosses, items with detailed explanations and uses, the list goes on. The game teaches that it wants you to be direct and aggressive, but also that you have the tools at your disposal to make combat unique to your own preferred style. The game does a wonderful job at teaching the player all the different mechanics and intricacies, so combat can feel very welcoming and easy to digest. Weapons can be assembled and disassembled between their heads and hilts, allowing for mixing and matching weapons to fit how you might want to play. Hilts can also be re-balanced to fit different stat distributions, so investing heavily into one stat during your playthrough isn’t as costly as it is in a game like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. The Legion Arm is another combat addition that utilizes P’s mechanical arm to function differently, including a grappling hook that pulls in enemies to attack. Each weapon head and hilt has access to a special move with a blue meter that fills up over time through combat. From what I could tell, parrying attacks and hitting charged heavy attacks didn’t build the bar, but standard attacks did. I couldn’t tell if this was intentional or something that I just missed while I was watching the meter.
Along with the accessibility with combat that the game teaches the player through menus, the UI makes sure to give good attention to detail. Enemies can become sluggish after taking a certain number of hits, then hit with a charged heavy attack and followed up with a critical hit for massive damage. Another way that the game gives you something to pay attention to, each weapon has its own durability. Weapon durability easily manageable with an item that you receive at the beginning of the game, but if a weapon runs out of durability then it breaks.
Despite all of these wonderful details in combat, The general feel of the combat in Lies of P is sort of sluggish compared to the standard Souls game experience. While yes, the rapier has an easier window to dodge after an attack, the other available weapons turn going into a second attack a much heavier commitment. Is it possible to play around this? Absolutely. Would it be more convenient if combat flowed a little smoother by allowing for an easier chance to dodge? Totally. Another gripe I had with combat was the tightness of the game’s parry window. Attacks can be parried and blocked, and through parries you can even break an enemy’s weapon, limiting their attack range and damage. The downside to this is that the windows are very small and require very precise timing that led me to a lot of moments that resulted in “I thought I had that!” as I mistime a parry by a hair.
For what I want to see in the release version of the, I don’t have many asks or demands. Lies of P has beautiful presentation, an intricately beautiful combat system, and presents itself as a challenge that each player will without a doubt have their own unique adventure. The demo will be available on Playstation, Xbox One X and Series X|S, and PC until June 27th. For those that have played the demo the official Twitter account for Lies of P has released a demo survey.
