This is one of the few games I've played that actually manages to live up to fromsoft's own souls games in almost every way. The gameplay is incredibly refined, the world is beautiful, and the atmosphere is amazing. The only issues I have with it are a lackluster ending (in my opinion), a few bad or uninteresting bosses, and poor performance due to Denuvo implementation on PC. Otherwise, Lies of P is a fantastic game and I would HIGHLY reccomend it to anyone who enjoys Fromsoftware's soulslike games (Especially Sekiro/Bloodborne). 9/10.

Finally, a worthy competitor!


This game is not subtle at all about its inspirations, the way they manage to combine the combat systems of both sekiro and bloodborne is brilliant; certain moves are better avoided by dodging and others by parrying. This makes learning boss movesets and how to respond to them more complex and reduces the repetition of rolling through every attack of dark souls games. I do think the stamina recovery speed should be significantly faster though, it felt way too slow, even with the amulet that improves it.

- Bosses are the strongest part of Lies of P, some of them I would consider to be top tier souls-like encounters. Each boss' design is immaculate, I kept being pleasantly surprised at how gorgeous the encounters looked and how well their attacks are telegraphed. The satisfaction you get when you learn their moveset and can perfectly parry a full combo to stagger them is THE reason to play this game. It's the closest thing to a Sekiro sequel that exists at the moment (I didn't like Wo Long very much).

- Areas are visually striking and enemy variety is impressive, but I found the level design to be mediocre. The game is very very linear, there are no side areas, no branching paths and you never get a choice on where to go next. However I think it was a calculated tradeoff by the devs to instead focus more on complex enemy movesets. The exploration isn't very good, but even smaller foes have such awesome movesets, that they could pass off as bosses if they had more health.

- Story is forgetable, which didn't bother me because of how easily it can be ignored. It also isn't something I look for in these games.

- Difficulty is brutal, I think some of the bosses second phases are too hard. I say this as someone who can now casually beat sekiro in one sitting and enjoyed beating DS3 without leveling up. I think some attacks just come out way too fast to react on time consistently, and left me frustrated. I also ran through the game in NG+ and have rarely ever played anything that hard, not sure I would recommend honestly. Maybe with the summons it's fine but I'm too stubborn to use those.

In the end, I loved my time with Lies of P, but souls-like is my favorite genre so I'm a little biased. This game makes me hopeful for the future of the genre, because I now know that From isn't untouchable. Can't wait for Black myth: Wukong and other competitors to innovate even more on my favorite genre.

This game copies so much from FromSoft, but lands them really fuckin well. every little detail that is took from fromsoft feels very similar, but still lands this weird "limbo" area between Bloodborne and Sekiro. That feel is really well crafted, and I find it fantastic. What I didn't like was the linearity and the lack of options, but more so the needlessly tacked on addons like the robotic arm, and it provides nothing since there already is very little options and only change of weapon really does anything. The game is legitimately tougher than like the dark souls trilogy and bloodborne, but I don't believe it is harder than Sekiro. That sort of difficulty still feels great to overcome, and I think it is a very worthwhile play even if it is super derivative.

This game was absolutely amazing.
The level design, the enemies, the weapons, and the mechanics were immaculate in my opinion.
The game rewarded those with patience as well as punished those who over extend.
I think the 1.2 patch was not needed as people just needed to stop crying and get good.
I finished my first playthrough in 31 hours and 45 minutes with 182 deaths. Best run in a souls like I have ever done.
I will 100% be doing more playthroughs to 100% this game.

Lies of P is pretty definitively the best 3rd party souls-like game to be released. It mainly suffers from limited enemy variety and some mediocre character building. This causes the end game to drag, particularly with the realization that elemental weakness is essentially all you need to consider for end game bosses turning them from the first real challenges of the game to annoyances that are slightly less trivial than every other obstacle so far. That being said, the moment to moment gameplay is nearly always engaging. Each enemy feels distinct and, while the areas are sequential, the levels themselves wind and loop back in on themselves in satisfying ways and also contain enjoyable to find secrets with meaningful rewards. Very rarely does a trap feel unfair as it is nearly always the case that they allow you to encounter an enemy or environmental hazard in a controlled environment before a heightened wariness concerning their presence is demanded. The studio did not quite reach being on par with FromSoft's titles, but certainly displayed that with more practice they likely have the capability to truly contend.

Great pixel artwork, some really killer tracks. A really by the numbers story I've seen from a lot of similar indies, Iconoclasts especially. While the gunbrella feels good to use there's not really any enemy that responds to it well - especially not bosses most enemies even on hard are easily punished by dashing into them. The utility of the umbrella function is really under utilised as well being a fun platforming mechanic with few areas for it to shine with any depth. Fun character portraits, animations, and flair are here but there's not much of substance it just looks very pretty.

Different than what I was expecting; this is far from a sprawling action platformer. It’s much more of an adventure game with action segments in between story beats. Moving the story forward is dependent on talking to NPCs, gathering and exchanging items, and learning more about this gritty steampunk setting.

The action is good but a little unfocused. It’s weird that this is an analog system; you can’t use the D-pad to move, and aiming is based more on a twin-stick system. They seemingly hedged their bets on the control scheme, because there’s a twin-stick/shoulder buttons option for control but it doesn’t always feel great, and using just the left analog and face buttons feels like you’re missing the full functionality of the aiming system. It still works and feels good most of the time, there’s just less of a focus on the action than I anticipated for a game called “Gunbrella”.

Overall I’m enjoying it; I’ve seen that it’s pretty short and the mystery at the center is compelling enough. If this system was put into a huge sprawling maps with deeper systems and upgrades it might interest me a little more, but it’s enjoying for the smaller experience that it is.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”

I went in completely blind (didn’t know the franchise, much less the premise) and Evoland 2 blew me completely away. It is an JRPG-style adventure game where you tackle an ancient evil, with the unique twist that you warp between gaming eras using powerful magi monoliths. Not only do you move through time, but you sample a medley of mechanics from video games, such as Chrono Trigger, Runner games, shoot ‘em ups, Bejeweled (Match 3), and Professor Layton. As others point out, you might not like each segment, and some of the more elongated scenes can get downright frustrating, but I know of no other game that have done a concept like this and kept it going throughout the game.

You will certainly get your money’s worth, it took me 23 hours to complete – over the span of nearly two weeks.

Evoland 2 isn’t a flawless game, the writing is inane at times, which actively harms the game’s exposition when it asks you to take it seriously. The parallel narrative (which I won’t spoil) isn't really compelling either, but you can forgive the sloppy writing after realizing its the quest that counts, and the friends you make along the way.

It baffles me how little documentation there is on this game, but this isn't Legend of Zelda. It's Evoland 2. And it's a long haul game just like the rest of 'em.

This is something that future games should model for, but as of right now, it's one of a kind and it's standing with its shoulders high as a result.

The first game was a sort of proof of concept of the gimmick. This game... took it and did everything it could. And I think it really worked.
Most of the different genres included were done pretty well. I only had trouble with the TRPG portions, but that's mostly cause I suck at TRPGs. The art and music is all really good, and the concept was beautifully weaved into the narrative.
Speaking of which... the story is REALLY good. It actually blows my mind how interesting the whole story is. There's a lot of fun side content too. The only problem I had with it was the slight lack of polish, but it was never a huge issue. I love this game so much.