A rare soulslike that sets itself apart from the growing list the genre has to offer by both creating an interesting and unique world that isn't just a generic copy of the dark, mysterious tone that Dark Souls made famous and by totally nailing the tough but fair combat mechanics that are a necessity for a game with this type of difficulty level.
The world is unique and feels like a fully realized idea. You can tell there was some real inspiration and vision here, it's not just a generic dark, grim world where everyone is vaguely sad and speaks in riddles. Some real thought went into crafting this world and it really stands out when compared to most games in the genre. I really can't overstate just how impressed I was with the ability to pull off such an interesting take on such an old and well explored story like Pinocchio and how well it works without feeling derivative or cheesy at all. Truly impressive stuff here.
The biggest reason most soulslikes fall short for me is that a lot of them don't seem to understand the balance that has to be struck between the combat controls and difficulty. If your game has enemies that constantly attack at a fervent pace, your character must be equipped with tools to deal with that (think Sekiro's parry and lack of stamina gauge for example) or if you want to restrict the pace of combat (with stamina bars that cap how many actions you can take in a certain period of time) you must design your enemies with those choices in mind. If you don't get this balance totally correct then the game will feel either extremely unfair or too easy; most souls clones seem to fall on the unfair side. Lies of P however hits this balance perfectly in their own unique way that is like a hybrid of Bloodborne and Sekiro. Lies of P chooses to give you a stamina bar and also the ability to block or parry. Blocking will still damage you but allows you to regain some of the lost health by landing attacks on an enemy (similar to the rally mechanic in BB) - landing a parry, while more risky, will not only cause you to avoid all damage, but will also damage the enemies posture meter (similar to Sekiro). This setup works perfectly with the boss design where most boss fights will attack with multi-hit flurries then give you a small window of time to punish and regain stamina.
My only complaint here is that once you get to a certain point pretty much every boss has multiple phases sometimes changing their move set once you hit a certain percentage of their health bar and sometimes waiting until you deplete their health completely before changing form and you having to start from scratch against totally new mechanics. Something about this just feels a little cheap to me as there's really no way of knowing if a boss has a second phase the first time you fight them. Sometimes you can feel it coming as the fight will be a little easy so you expect it, but other times the first phase feels hard enough to be a single phase fight then out of nowhere they restore all health and gain a whole new, usually more difficult, move set. This type of multiphase design essentially means that more often than not you will die at least once or twice on every fight because you'll use all your healing items learning phase one and have none remaining for phase two. So it turns into a practice makes perfect style of fight where you have to get good enough at phase one to make it through with enough health and healing items to conquer phase two. In a game like this learning a lesson usually means taking a significant amount of damage, and you can only afford so many mistakes per attempt so it just seems pretty lame to make us learn so many lessons for one fight. I think about it almost like if you are in school and your teacher gives you a test and then, much to your chagrin, as soon as you finish they hand you a whole other test that you weren't informed about. Some people might think this is a good thing, but I found it to be an annoyance especially towards the end where most of the phase one fights are hard enough to be their own singular boss fight.
Other than that one issue , I genuinely enjoyed this game and it is probably my favorite non-Fromsoft soulslikes that I've played (that isn't also a 2D metroidvania anyway) and I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of the genre.
The world is unique and feels like a fully realized idea. You can tell there was some real inspiration and vision here, it's not just a generic dark, grim world where everyone is vaguely sad and speaks in riddles. Some real thought went into crafting this world and it really stands out when compared to most games in the genre. I really can't overstate just how impressed I was with the ability to pull off such an interesting take on such an old and well explored story like Pinocchio and how well it works without feeling derivative or cheesy at all. Truly impressive stuff here.
The biggest reason most soulslikes fall short for me is that a lot of them don't seem to understand the balance that has to be struck between the combat controls and difficulty. If your game has enemies that constantly attack at a fervent pace, your character must be equipped with tools to deal with that (think Sekiro's parry and lack of stamina gauge for example) or if you want to restrict the pace of combat (with stamina bars that cap how many actions you can take in a certain period of time) you must design your enemies with those choices in mind. If you don't get this balance totally correct then the game will feel either extremely unfair or too easy; most souls clones seem to fall on the unfair side. Lies of P however hits this balance perfectly in their own unique way that is like a hybrid of Bloodborne and Sekiro. Lies of P chooses to give you a stamina bar and also the ability to block or parry. Blocking will still damage you but allows you to regain some of the lost health by landing attacks on an enemy (similar to the rally mechanic in BB) - landing a parry, while more risky, will not only cause you to avoid all damage, but will also damage the enemies posture meter (similar to Sekiro). This setup works perfectly with the boss design where most boss fights will attack with multi-hit flurries then give you a small window of time to punish and regain stamina.
My only complaint here is that once you get to a certain point pretty much every boss has multiple phases sometimes changing their move set once you hit a certain percentage of their health bar and sometimes waiting until you deplete their health completely before changing form and you having to start from scratch against totally new mechanics. Something about this just feels a little cheap to me as there's really no way of knowing if a boss has a second phase the first time you fight them. Sometimes you can feel it coming as the fight will be a little easy so you expect it, but other times the first phase feels hard enough to be a single phase fight then out of nowhere they restore all health and gain a whole new, usually more difficult, move set. This type of multiphase design essentially means that more often than not you will die at least once or twice on every fight because you'll use all your healing items learning phase one and have none remaining for phase two. So it turns into a practice makes perfect style of fight where you have to get good enough at phase one to make it through with enough health and healing items to conquer phase two. In a game like this learning a lesson usually means taking a significant amount of damage, and you can only afford so many mistakes per attempt so it just seems pretty lame to make us learn so many lessons for one fight. I think about it almost like if you are in school and your teacher gives you a test and then, much to your chagrin, as soon as you finish they hand you a whole other test that you weren't informed about. Some people might think this is a good thing, but I found it to be an annoyance especially towards the end where most of the phase one fights are hard enough to be their own singular boss fight.
Other than that one issue , I genuinely enjoyed this game and it is probably my favorite non-Fromsoft soulslikes that I've played (that isn't also a 2D metroidvania anyway) and I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of the genre.