To anyone who knows me, it’s no secret that I enjoy games that challenge and frustrate me all at once. I enjoy the thrill of dying to a boss hundreds of times and then screaming in anger and rage at my TV only to realize that beating the boss was easier than I thought. Well, that’s sometimes the case… Anyways, every time I hear the word “soulslike,” I instantly jump to the call because it’s just my addiction at this point. So, when I heard about Lies of P a few years ago and that it would be a soulslike Pinocchio game, I knew that I had to play it. Like, immediately.
Lies of P feels like it’s the spiritual successor to Bloodborne, with its dark Baroque-esque visuals and its bloody violence. It’s got this level of aggressive gameplay that makes you want to keep slashing and attacking, but you’re humbled quickly when you realize that dying in Lies of P is just as rough as it is in Dark Souls.
You see, Lies of P feels like it’s a FromSoftware game, and that’s what makes it so amazing as a soulslike. It’s not a FromSoftware game of course, but it is as close as possible to a FromSoftware game. In a way, Lies of P understood the formulaic approach of a FromSoftware game and applied it with its own spin.
The Story of Lies of P
Lies of P has a story and it’s pretty clear from the onset what that story is. The fictional city of Krat is overrun by a “madness” that is causing puppets to turn on humans and humans to go absolutely insane. It’s a grim and dark world destroyed and desecrated by horrors unimaginable to the human mind. That might be a bit dramatic, but you get the idea.
The story is gained as you go throughout the world and explore Krat, taking down enemies and bosses and learning more about what happened to this once lovely city.
However, the unfortunate piece about Lies of P is that the story is pretty much not present throughout most of the game. Only until close to the end do you really get a feel for what the story of Lies of P shapes up to be.
In any case though, there are a lot of interesting and unique elements that I liked about the story. I liked the inclusion of the Black Rabbit Brotherhood (you’ll have to find out about that one for yourself). I liked being able to meet characters in the world and engaging in optional boss fights.
For the most part, as a soulslike game, Lies of P did great with its story. It wasn’t as vague as a FromSoftware game, but it had enough vagueness to keep it engaging and interesting to uncover.
No More Lies – The Truth or Lie Mechanic
Part of the story involves you picking to tell the truth or to lie. Technically, a puppet cannot lie, but because you’re Pinocchio, you can lie. The thing is, this affects whether or not you become more human or stay more puppet.
If you lie constantly, eventually, you will be human. If you tell the truth, you will stay a puppet. There isn’t really an advantage to either, but for instance, as a puppet, you can upgrade yourself more than a human can.
Personally, I just kept lying because I wanted to see what would happen. You’re presented with a lot of scenarios to tell the truth or to lie to, so you can flex your lying skills in many places throughout Krat.
The Gameplay is Bloodborne and Sekiro and Dark Souls and…
Lies of P is likened often to Bloodborne, but I’m here to say that playing this game is not really like playing Bloodborne. Lies of P is more like Sekiro but it has elements of all FromSoftware gameplay styles.
For one, you can’t just rely on dodging the entirety of Lies of P. If you keep spamming dodge, you’re not going to get anywhere, let’s just put it at that. Lies of P wants you to practice and perfect your perfect blocking skills, which requires you to time blocks.
Unfortunately though, there isn’t really a reward to perfect blocking. The enemy takes a long time to stagger–if it even does stagger. And timing it requires a lot of practice as well. Like, a lot. Even if you think you’ve got it down, some enemies are really fast and it makes your skills look meager.
A lot of bosses in Lies of P require a combined effort of all of the movement abilities in the game. For example, the King’s Flame, Fuoco boss requires more dodging than blocking. The Scrapped Watchman requires more blocking and some dodging. But if you can time those perfect blocks, you can do things like break enemy weapons (you should do this with the Puppet Master, you’ll see what I mean).
Knowing this, it is very easy to need a few runs at a single boss to figure out the strategy you need to employ to beat said boss. You will most likely not get a boss fight down on your first two or three tries. You need some time to learn, strategize, and attack. Plus, there are a lot of moves that you may have never seen before come up. You need to be ready for anything and everything when it comes to this game.
Look, I won’t lie and say that Lies of P is easy if you’ve played Soulslike games a lot before. That’s because it’s not an easy game. It’s not easy for really anyone, souls enjoyer or not. The game is punishingly difficult at times and you will find yourself frustrated several other times.
If you’re struggling with boss fights though, Lies of P lets you summon some help with a Specter. These guys usually launch themselves head-first into a fight, so I don’t recommend using them on every boss because some bosses require more dodging and passive fighting approaches than others.
Weapon Assembly and More
Lies of P includes weapon assembly mechanics. This basically means that you get to go around the world and find weapons and then build new weapons like Legos. It’s a lot of fun because you can make some really silly but super overpowered weapons when you do this.
For example, you can attach a wrench to a police baton. It’s silly but powerful.
You can find weapons by going around the world and fighting some enemies or looting chests. You can get some really tough and awesome weapons by doing this and you can then upgrade those weapons at Hotel Krat with Moonstone.
Leveling Up
To level up in Lies of P, you will need to kill enemies and collect Ergo. This allows you to level up certain stats and increase things like your health, stamina, and attack. I always recommend that you work towards upgrading health and stamina first because you’ll be able to withstand a boss for a longer period of time if you have more health to spare. A single attack will not be as devastating in this case.
If you want to know how to farm Ergo, just keep killing the enemies in the Krat Central Station. Just reset the Stargazer each time and kill all the enemies in the area. You’ll be able to farm a ton of Ergo and then you can go to Hotel Krat and level up by talking to Sophia.
It’s super easy to level up in this game if you’re willing to deal with killing the same enemies for a few runs in a row.
Visuals and Atmosphere
Lies of P is gorgeous in a lot of ways. I loved the atmosphere and the visuals of the game. It’s really impressive how crisp it looks and I love the character designs. The masks are really cool and there’s a lot of unique and interesting outfits you can get around the city.
However, there were some technical issues with the visuals. For one, the lip sync is just off. It wasn’t fixed at all from the demo, and this is something I noted then as well. It’s really jarring to hear voices and not see lips moving in sync. It is what it is, but I can’t say that it doesn’t bother me.
For the most part though, Lies of P is an insanely good game with some OK elements. Its difficult will definitely alienate a lot of players from the game, but if you enjoy a good challenge that will get you to think strategy first, then you’ll like this game.
But, I can’t recommend Lies of P for everyone. I can’t really recommend it for everyone because it’s just a tough game. I liked it, all things considered, but because I can’t recommend it for everyone, I’m going to have to go ahead and give it an 8/10. Lies of P is a fantastic soulslike though, and if you like souls games, I think you’ll have a good time with this one.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
