Lies of P is amazing

 

The other face of my Souls-Like extravaganza was spent in the world of the sixtieth Pinocchio adaptation of 2023- Lies of P. Alongside my struggle through Lords of the Fallen I rewarded myself after every section I dragged myself through with a preciously brief dose of a Lies of P area to make up for the suffering- in doing so offsetting my time with one of the roughest high budgets Souls-likes of all time with what might go down as one of the best of the genre. A game borne from a bizarre adaptation decision that ended up carving a unique model for itself in the market and securing a potential series down the line if they have all their ducks in a row. I am thrilled to say that everything they say about The Lies of P is true- the game is a downright masterpiece of the genre!

When I heard of the premise I'll admit to being a bit sceptical. Dark Fantasy Pinocchio in a Souls-like? Seriously? It sounded like the set-up for a bad joke and I make no apologies for the fact that I straight assumed this would just be throw-away from a premise angle. I always liked the look of the game, from it's delightfully on-point 'world expo' style robots to it's retro 'city of the future' industrialism angle embodied in Kryat. But I figured the heart of the game would at best be gimmicky in it's relation to the story of it's origin and the theme it exposes. Which really rubbed with me because I always saw the Souls-genre as a vehicle for some of the best most medium-effective stories to ever grace gaming. Dark Souls' wider exploration on destructive obsession, Hollow Knight's subversive underground epic- I'm not surprised when new entrants to the genre-type fail to live up to those examples- but I always kind of sad when I see someone not even try. I think Lies is going to be a new game I include up there in these comparisons from here on.

Taking the very nature of 'puppetry' and the theme of 'defining humanity' that is lightly brushed on by the source material, Lies of P presents a story about seeking legitimacy through the pursuit of the abject prospect we call 'humanity' whilst raising the query of what that even is. I won't pretend there's any great insight into the nature of mankind even attempted by this game, but the very strong reigns by which it weaves around these decent mature pillars forms an emotionally resonant and strong-willed narrative that sticks with you. Like any great Anime, it comfortably rests on the edge of significant discourse and weaves a solid narrative in that space.

But the plaudits don't end with the narrative, that's merely where they start. Lies of P follows the footsteps of Sekiro (and I supposed Bloodborne but given how that game is sentenced to forever remain on the PlayStation 4 I'll never be able to validate that for myself.) by taking a more light-footed, dodge and parry approach to the traditional Souls-Like gameplay whilst sticking staunchly to the build variety of other Souls-Like style games. Action is fast paced, death comes quick, but you aren't at the whim of 'learn to time your parries or die'. You can still build to whack around your enemies with a big stick or dodge through attacks to get that perfect back-flurry- of course with that comes some limitations. The biggest one being parrying itself. This game does not offer you nearly the same amount of tools that Sekiro does with it's parrying system. There is no telltail glow, there is no generous parry window, there is merely the promise that if you nail the exact moment of contact (because the deflect is instant) you entirely avoid damage and whittle down their invisible poise meter.

Lies of P really is a very active kind of Souls-Like, where you are encouraged to be aggressive and resourceful with the weapons you use, the Legion Arms you equip and the Sword-arts you pull out in dire situations. Your reward is big damage windows on guard breaking, gorgeous animation work and the kind of cinematic flair when you finally dominate a fight that is really rather rare in this genre simply for the style of games that it encourages. Which is not to say P is as active or dangerous as Sekiro, mind. In fact, given the still 'Experience based' levelling, the generally slower enemies and the forgiving damage-recieved; Lies of P is actually a lot more accessible and easy than Sekiro- in a manner that I think leads a lot of people into a false sense of security before the second half of the game rushes at you with violent abandon. 

P also presents us a visually stunning and interesting world in the fallen city of Kryat, dipped in it's secrets and it's factions and characters. Whilst I think the actual environmental storytelling could do with some work- a lot of the incidental documents you pick up are rather dry pamphlets that offer very little more than what can be gleaned by simply looking at the world around you, or name drops vague historical background not exactly pertinent or additive to current events or themes- there's a clear purpose of design present in every unique district, each area feels cohesive and intent driven- I never feel lost in a maze for the sake of there being a maze or stretching out a level. (Besides, perhaps, the final climb at the end of the game which really does stretch out for a bit!)

And, of course, we have the bosses. Large and small, Lies never falls back on gimmicks to make a fight interesting but rather incorporates spectacle-tipped extravaganzas of moves fast and slow which engender great tests of skill and build- as this genre is best served facilitating. Poise breaking can be somewhat unreliable for bigger bosses, so big-bonk builds aren't always rewarded, but playing more to this game's style- dodges, parrying, blocking and health reclaiming- creates these genuinely solid duels that zoom through so fluidly. Additionally, can I just commend this team for really getting it with all the minutiae about how to give a boss fight. No major boss is ever sprung out of nowhere- you always have a summoning pool outside of big fight arenas to tip you off. Whenever you die your Ergo is placed outside the entrance to the boss, allowing you to retreat and restock if you need it. (because literally nothing is benefitted by locking Souls inside of a boss arena. That's such an antiquated practice.) And you'll find respawn points never further than thirty seconds from the boss- they know the futility of the runback. In terms of fixing points of friction within this genre type, consider Lies of P at the exact opposite end of the spectrum to Lords of the Fallen.

It may have been said before but it bears repeating- Lies of P is pretty much the only Souls game capable of giving FromSoftware a run for their money in the best way. They aren't following the example of FromSoft trying to catch a hint of their magic, they're doing their own thing, iterating where possible and building the foundations of a team worth paying attention to in the years to come. P is very obviously not the extent of their ambitions, the cliffhanger finale is equal parts ridiculous and exciting to consider- and I'll just bet it makes Miyazaki smile to see others finally getting to that point of mastery within this new face of the 'action adventure genre' that he helped bring into this world. And goodness do I hope those rumours about a bubbling DLC are true, because I need more P in my life.

Lies of P: Looking as good as ever

 So how is Monstro going to translate into this world? It's going to be horrifying. Isn't it?

I don't even know why I call this a 'gaming blog', it should just be a 'souls-like' blog for the amount of times I find ways to wind out paragraphs about various entropic, depressing worldscapes littered with former men now turned beasts. I'm going to actually have to get around to finishing Lords of the Fallen in order to talk about that next. (Dear god, don't make me. I couldn't stand going across the same area for the third time in a row.) Everytime I think "It's high time you put down that genre for a little bit and move onto literally anything else", whoops, a new trailer for that one game I really liked the look of flies out of nowhere. So here we are again, with actual gameplay this time for Lies of P. Which, just for the sake of those who might have been absent for the reveal, refers to the story of Pinocchio. Yes, I'm intrigued too. I wonder what grows longer in this adaptation? (Probably nothing, the nose thing was a short bit of the source material that Disney stretched into the entire moral of the movie.) 

We all know the bare basic ingredients that smash together in order to make our most favourite Soulslikes; a typically weighty approach to combat, unforgiving bosses, a tendency towards Dark Fantasy worlds because that sort of setting slides neatly up alongside this sort of challenge. What what is it about the Lies of P that sets it apart from a lot of the other games that have caught the Soulslike bug? Well, apart from the fact it's set to star a dark fantasy version of freakin' Pinocchio, the game proposes a clockwork word for players whereupon enemies seem to be almost all jerky-movement, wind-up powered, Victorian-era, mechanisms that bring to mind fond memories of game worlds like Bioshock Infinite and that stock of creativity. It's a small change to the artistic approach, but it does open up a whole new world of possibility with enemy and boss designs, and perhaps even some creative boss mechanics involving messing with clockwork mechanisms. I'm speculating a little but all of this makes for fertile ground, and that inspires me.

Lies of P takes us to the fictional city of Krat and places us, as the boy wonder himself, on the path to find our 'father' Geppetto who has called out to us and whom I suspect to be either the final boss or at least the prelude to some version of the Blue fairy as the final boss. (Yes, former safe mother figure twisted into vile, destructive caricature; I can't imagine a Souls-like not shooting for that) What follows seems to be a journey across an industrial era cityscape wherein the organic citizens have been exorcized from the populace and all that's left seem to be these, perhaps former service robots, gone brutally rogue. (At least, I think the human's are gone, judging from the one man we see hung from his feet and disembowelled from the trailer) The jittery, jerky movements of these creatures remind me a little bit of the animatronics from later Five nights at Freddy's games, and it makes me wonder if the developers are going to take advantage of that and have some light horror elements based around their animacy. Perhaps a show room floor full of seemingly inactive robots that displace themselves when the player isn't looking, get creative with it.

Our Napoleonic Pinocchio differs from your typical soulslike protagonist and not just because of their fancy dress sense. They have a clearly defined place in this world and a relationship to it's people, there doesn't yet appear to be this leaning into his diminutive place within the ecosystem of Krat, and most importantly of all, from everything we've see it would appear that our character only seems to dabble with finesse-based weaponry. Now this could be a misnomer and the full game has it's far share of clunky heavy weapons too, (There was one huge sawblade weapon which could swing either way) but right now I've noticed there's a lot of rapiers, scimitars, and other tools that aid a faster, lighter combat then one would typically expect in this genre, and that pans out against the gameplay that we see in this early peek.

Our action portions here have a speed and swing to them that almost looks akin to a pared back hack'n'slash game at times, even going so far as to give our character a full parry move that seems to be activated by triggering a guard at the right time, rather than by purposely leaving oneself open with a stupid slapping motion. (Always thought Dark Souls' version of 'parrying' was conceptually bizarre) Another example of this fast-action comes from a little clip where we see P running around rooftops across from a gun wielder, only to shoot some sort of hook out and drag that enemy across a roof towards them, sort of like Nero's devil bringer from DMC 5. Although, to be fair, that also has similarities to Sekrio, as does the parrying system and the lighter feel in general, which leads me to believe that particular Souls game would have been a stronger inspiration than the others here. (Although the visual style is obviously Bloodborne-esque)

What we've had a lack of so-far of these trailers, and given their importance to this style of game it really does stand out, is bosses. So far we've only seen one for certain in this trailer and perhaps a quick glance at another. (Although that animatronic Bobby police-man could easily have been just another really big enemy) I hope there's effort being put into their designs beyond just making them a bigger damage dealer with more health, because I really do think some ingenuity could slip in and make this one of the most creative boss-wielding Soulslikes with the right care. That which we have seen however, which doesn't include any boss combat whatsoever, does have a visual motif to it that a wild thought of mine immediately compared to Nier Automata, from the scavenged, mismatched but graceful look to him. Should this boss match any of the grandeur of Simone, I would be simply ecstatic. 

Of course I do have my concerns going forward, which is natural when we're talking about a genre that I am this deeply engrained with. And, rather bizarrely considering everything I have praised so far, it comes from the actual enemy design. (I know; I'm a man at war with himself.) They look good, great even, but they just don't scream 'Souls' to me just yet. And yes, that could easily come from the fact that we haven't had a clockwork themed iteration of this genre just yet, granted, but I think there's this lack of utter surreal which most every souls covets. From every descriptor I just provided, you could ignore all screenshots, not watch the footage, and still have a decent idea of what this game looks like and the beings that inhabit the world. That's not because of some stellar descriptive skills on my end, but simply because this game looks exactly as the premise implies it would look, which isn't to say that it isn't creative, but just that we haven't seen any artistic risks as of yet, which is a hallmark of the best this genre has to offer that makes me feel somewhat empty without. (Heck, that one boss from the Elden Ring footage was a freak with-like, several dozen limbs and appendages; you can make things that weird looking easily with a modular clockwork aesthetic, we just haven't had that demonstrated yet.)

At the end of the day I can't ride anything I've seen too hard, though. As I said, I'm just really into these sorts of games so I tend to nitpick and deep dive, but outside of pulling hairs I have to say that this trailer looked truly fantastic. As good as a game like this could feasibly look, in movement, presentation and overall style. So I am very much pleased with what I'm seeing and can feel myself approaching that all-consuming thirst to dive into everything this game has to offer. But I'm staying reserved for the thing to be made at the very least, because I see the inkling of something very special and that should not, can not, and will not be rushed. And with all those talks about a subtle morality system and the possibility of multiple endings; well I'm just a kid in a candy store right now and I'm in incredibly dangerous territory to getting a cavity.

Lies of P

 The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It doesn't take all that much to win over my interest with a new game announcement, I'm a simple creature who likes shiny things afterall and new games tend to be pretty darn shiny. You could literally throw a splash screen at me and I'd at least ooh and ahh for a few seconds before clicking off and never thinking about it again for as long as I live. The trick, as is the case with anyone, comes in keeping my attention when the wind changes and not melting into the deluge of other games out being flung out there every single day. Sell yourself a little bit, let me see that ever-important USP. Well, for 'Lies of P' getting me through the door was as simple as having a title card written with such overly extravagant calligraphic zeal that I literally couldn't read it. (What is that: "Pies of 6"?) And once the hook was in and line pulled taut, the sinker was when I robbed myself the satisfaction of trying to figure out what this was about (I wouldn't have figured it out anyway, the trailer was vague) and read down in the description. Now I have to find out what becomes of this game. But I'm jumping a bit ahead with the narrative.

So you've got yourself a Dark Souls trailer set in a steampunkian Londonium-esque town that almost resembles Dunwall from a certain couple of angles. Fair enough, so far so Bloodbourne, honestly if you told me this was some sort of late-life expansion coming towards that classic I'd believe you with everything that I'm seeing. Whilst perhaps not coming across as the most stylistically unique prospect that the world has ever seen, the archetype the team chose from their imaginarium conceptual-space is already distinct enough to secure a certain type of audience for theme alone. It's all tophats, clockwork machines and corpses full of rats. (Actually this might just be London present day with that description) Oh, and there's some old looking man dragging a briefcase through the city like one of the Pilgrims of Londor from Dark Souls. See, this game is practically stealing iconic imagery so far, there's no way it couldn't get my attention someway. And the trailer ends on a dapper looking gentlemen with a robotic hand right out of Sekiro, if anyone was playing Souls bingo they'd be winning the jackpot right about now. But I'm still not sure what's particularly unique about anything I've seen here. Let me look in the description. 'Souls Like game', duh, ''PS5, Series X, PC", at least it's headed for everybody, "Inspired by the classic story of Pinocchio". Huh.

Lies. (Big nose.) Of P. (Pinocchio.) I don't know whether to bury my head in the arms and groan or slap my knee about how ingenious that is- actually, I've decided, I'm going with the former. A Pinocchio themed Souls-like? Well points for creativity, I suppose, and just when I was starting to think this looked like one of the most derivative projects of it's type that I'd seen; that's one heck of an opinion turn around. What have you gotta do to a creative mind to have them conceive a tough-as-nails action combat souls-game around the story of a young puppet looking to discover himself in a cruel world of moral quandaries? Actually, now that I put it like that this almost sounds like the premise of an Anime, so I suppose this isn't the stupidest concept in the world. Maybe. So, I guess the Blue Angel will serve as a level up NPC? Jiminy Cricket is a boss summon? Geppetto is the sad-old-man fight at the end? Is it too late to get off this ride? I'm feeling a little sick... (I bet the Monstro boss fight is gonna be sick, though, not gonna lie!)

I didn't have to look far into reactions before I saw excited comparisons to another game which I suppose was inevitable. "Isn't this just like American Mcgee's Alice?" (Still waiting on that third entry that you're never gonna make, guys. I need to know if Alice ever puts herself back together again, give me that closure!) Right away I have to put my foot down and insist that despite the surface level interpretation of 'two games based on fairy tails with a dark turn to them' that's not exactly the most perfect comparison. American Mcgee's Alice springboards off a unique and bizarre world, leaning on it's mysterious intangibility and extrapolating that into a sinister blossom of corruption, madness and total instability. This game is taking a pretty straightforward tale, with some wierdness perhaps but overall relatively sensible, and trying to make that the battleground for an action adventure Bloodborne clone. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that it's a different kettle of fish to Alice.

But sure, I'll bite; what exactly have you done to Pinocchio to make him fit inside a Bloodbourne shaped box? Well according to the Steam page you are thrown into the City of Krat; a place "Overwhelmed by madness and bloodlust", with naught but a single note: "Bearer of the curse... Seek larger Souls- Seek the king- lest this land swallow you whole, as it has so many others." Oh wait, wrong game. It actually just says "Find Mr. Geppetto. He's here in the city." So if that's not confirmation that Geppetto is assuming the role of Gwyn lord of Cinder for this game I don't know what is. ('Plin plong plin' incoming) You are tasked with being a puppet mechanoid slicing his way through this fallen city all for the hopes of becoming Human, an ultimately fruitlessly gilded cage of-a-goal considering how depressed most of humanity is. Wait a second- I just realised that's the exact same goal of The Bearer of the Curse from Dark Souls II. Pinocchio better be careful he doesn't slip up and accidentally end up becoming a time-travelling warrior-king with a half-dragon handmaiden. (Wow, Dark Souls II's weirdness hits me anew every damn day)

As much as I mock, however, I will admit that some of the Steam bullet points do sound intriguing. One such being these 'lying quests' that are somehow both procedurally generated and react to how you 'lie', whatever that combination of buzz-concepts means in action. But more importantly these quests will have a knock on effect on the ending of the game, which is a switch up from more traditional Souls-likes that usually just spring an ending choice on you two seconds before the credits. (Yes, Dark Souls 3's took considerably more effort. I'm well aware of that) I do think it odd, however, that this game appears to be championing lying when the traditional Pinocchio tale did seem to lean in the exact opposite direction- but this is 'inspired by', isn't it? Let them deviate, who cares... There's also a limb swap-out system which could prove for some ultimately transformative player builds depending on how the team realise it, and a weapon-making system which could be the absolute worst if it becomes a resource grind like 90% of all gaming weapon-making systems are. (They always sound so cool and then proceed to let me down.)

I'm not going to continue obfuscating facts here... Lies of P sort of already has me just the tiniest bit hyped out the gate. Of course, we haven't seen any gameplay as this was just a barebones reveal, but Souls-likes are my weakspot; I always end up salivating after them. I've pointed out all the similarities this concept shares with it's contemporaries, but to be honest I love all those games anyway so sharing their visage isn't really a negative for me at the end of the day. I even kind of like the idea of twisting a children's fairytale on it's head, it appeals to my predilection towards the corrupt perfectly. My only real reservation would be that the Korean studio behind this, Round8, have only really been known for retooling a failed MMO called Bless; a retooling that's still yet to come out and so could very well still be trash. They haven't exactly proven themselves, but they haven't necessarily had an opportunity to and that proving could very well start today. So well done, Round8, you've got me invested to at least check you out for gameplay in a year or two's time, here's hoping you don't end up pulling a CDPR, eh.