Let me preface this with the fact that I played Lords of the Fallen (2023) immediately preceding Lies of P, so I can't help but compare them in many ways. I went into Lies of P expecting a much better game (vs. LotF) and was surprisingly unimpressed by the end, especially considering the high reception LoP seemed to get and the lack of accolades LotF got. In my book, they're comparable. Lies of P may arguably be the better made game in certain aspects (many things worked, like the focus mechanic, the leveling and customization was well done, I really appreciated how linear and easy to follow it was) but after hearing people compare it to Bloodborne and Sekiro, I expected clean, tight, fast-paced, twitchy combat... and got something that felt wildly clunky and slow compared to LotF. I much prefer dashing and zippy movement and LotF delivered on that part so I expected LoP to be even quicker by how folks described it. But I felt so slow in comparison to most of the bosses which was very frustrating. I found myself urging P on like, "dude MOVE you gotta move faster than that!" and then when I tried the parry approach that felt uninteresting and like I was standing there deflecting/tanking hits until it was my turn to get hits in... not fun in my book. (side note: I did a dex/technique run) And half the time it felt like the buttons I was pushing were unresponsive (found myself going "ummmm hello? I was DEFINITELY holding down/pressing R1 to deflect and NOTHING happened???" a lot. My legion arm also felt near unresponsive at times.) This all culminated in the last fight, the Nameless Puppet. Awful fight, didn't feel like skill mattered, even when I had good "runs" at him I'd find myself being held back by weapon near breaking or unavoidable attacks taking me out. Overall I had high expectations from how everyone spoke about this game and came out wondering why more people didn't try Lords of the Fallen. They're both very decent soulslikes with somewhat disappointing endings but are worth playing if you like the genre.