I think your mileage with this will heavily depend on how much you can forgive it for being so derivative, but I think in this case it’s worth forgiving. Personally, I have no problem with stealing souls systems like bonfires, estus, stamina management, parries, rallies etc. but there are points where I think Lies of P crosses a line: talking to sick people through windows, a not-fire-keeper calling you “clever one”, slowly pushing open heavy double-doors, the same damn item pickup and menu sounds, I think these kinds of choices are needlessly derivative and will only serve to remind people of other, better, games. A more thrifty approach could have taken the meat of souls without also taking the chaff. Even things like attacking, running and dodging animations are uncannily similar to fromsoft titles, which is a bit of a double-edged sword: On the one hand, this is one of the precious few souls copycats that actually feels great to play, because it takes the finely-tuned animation cadence of fromsoft so wholesale (the other souls copycat that feels good, Nioh, relies on the years of action game experience that Team Ninja has, so it’s maybe preferable for an inexperienced dev to simply steal in this case). The negative side of this is that everything which feels “off” or out of place will stick out all the more severely. Level design is pretty obviously inferior to fromsoft’s games, as linear as it is with a bunch of superfluous shortcuts, lacking the overlapping and layered tracks that define the best souls levels (ds3 undead settlement is a perfect example) and lacking any real side areas. But elsewhere I have to say that as the game went on, I found remarkably little to complain about: Environmental design and the art direction is alarmingly good for a debut game, enemy variety is surprisingly great - one of the critical things that separates good souls from mid souls, I was really taken aback by how the game has unique minibosses that are only used once or twice whereas basically every other souls copycat is defined by excessive reuse. The quality of the animations is universally top-notch, everything flows great and so many weapons have enjoyable movesets and bosses have subtle variations in their combos to signify what they’ll do next.

All creativity is about stealing to some extent, though this is admittedly on the more extreme end of that spectrum. Still, I think a fixation on its similarities - both superficial and meaningful - can cover up the actually original things that are here: Glossing over the neat durability and weapon-fusion mechanics, I love the parry/blocking system in this game and think it's an ingenious fusion of Sekiro and Bloodborne that actually improves both. The boon of Sekiro’s posture and parry mechanics was that it allowed bosses to have flashy, dynamic, extended blockstrings without feeling like you were just waiting for the boss to be done (i.e Elden Ring), because parrying those blockstrings did damage to the enemy. The flaw of Sekiro’s mechanics, for some people at least, was that parry was the only meaningful way to engage with a lot of situations, which Lies of P solves by requiring posture breaks to be activated by a charged heavy, forcing you into finding an opening and not just reacting with parries. Bloodborne, on the other hand, was all about hit-trading, thanks to its rally mechanic, and the boon of this was that getting hit was equally an opportunity just as much as it was a punishment, the flaw, however, was that in some cases it could promote mindlessly aggressive play, where you just hit-trade a boss to death without even trying to avoid their attacks (Bloodborne mostly got around this with clever enemy designs, but some bosses still have the problem). Lies of P fuses these two by locking the rally mechanic behind blocking, while retaining the parrying mechanics of Sekiro. The result is an interesting risk-reward pipeline: Risk a parry to get their posture down, if you miss and get a regular block, now you’re encouraged to go on the offensive to get that health back, getting hit is unequivocally bad and dodging remains very relevant as a repositioning tool. It’s interesting and, for me, very satisfying to engage with, though I wouldn’t say it’s perfect: It’s a little too insistent on parrying with the armour and tracking that bosses/elite enemies sometimes have, the fact that it doesn’t show you the posture bar so that you can’t factor in how close an enemy is to staggering into your decision-making also seems like an odd choice, and the “perilous attacks” beating both block and dodge can get a little ridiculous, but for the most part I really like the systems here.

The deciding factor for me is that the bosses in Lies of P are genuinely fantastic, all with loads of varied, amazingly animated attacks and interesting gimmicks, there are some lacklustre ones, especially the two lategame rematch bosses, but the run of bosses from Andreas with his side-switching gimmick, the Black Rabbits aka "O&S but with 3 different Ornsteins", King of Puppets, Victor and the Green Monster with the clever reuse of the Watchman is just banger after banger, they're all so creatively designed, and if I could commit some blasphemy real quick, I think this boss lineup is better than any other soulslike game, fromsoft included.

It comes with the caveat that this is a very difficult game. I love that, personally, the level of difficulty means that encounters demand you respect them and learn their moves rather than stumbling through, but it won’t be for everyone, and I think if you go in with the mindset that it’s just a copy, you’re not going to want to give it that respect. It’s a little sad that the general reception seems to be so lukewarm, and it’s hard to pinpoint whether this lies in the difficulty, the feeling that it’s a “knockoff”, a vindictive idea that any good soulslike is a threat to fromsoft, or just general fatigue with soulslikes. Regardless, a lot of the takes about how the game is unfair or feels “off” just don’t ring true to me at all; I think this is the real deal, it’s a damn good game, and I honestly find myself feeling that it’s going to be my GOTY, but hey, I loved Bloodborne and Sekiro, so it was probably a given that I would love a fusion of the two as well.

Lies of P: “Bloodborne never ever,” maybe, but at least we can play this on the PC. If you've played Sekiro and Bloodborne and are sick of bouncing between the two to cover whatever itch those scratch, consider Lies of P. People have actually made Pinocchio cool in 2023 which is no easy feat, they deserve some attention.

The titular lying is what drives the story: are you going to be a good boy or a naughty lad? If you ask me, it's barely a choice as the game clearly wants you to lie at every possible chance; lying will literally tell you something is changing inside of you and Pinocchio physically reacts while telling the truth will just give you a big, fat goose egg. It's also in the title. Kind of a no-brainer.

Lies of P really shines in its gameplay. It is clearly trying to mimic the previously mentioned FromSoftware games and that is totally fine with me because it does a great job: combat is fast, feels tense, and is as punishing as it is rewarding. The game has a parrying mechanic that is pretty tough to master as the window for a perfect parry is extremely narrow. Miss it, and you'll merely block the hit, reducing damage by about half and letting you catch some of it back by hitting them (just like in Bloodborne). Again, if you're looking for something that'll have you parrying like a one-armed Wolf, this game is worth trying out. It's on Game Pass if you got it and feel like getting good.
So it's just a copycat, then? For the most part, yeah, and the few things unique to this game definitely aren't its strongest aspects. You can create your own weapons as every weapon (aside from unique boss weapons) can be broken down into its head and handle and early on you'll be able to swap them around as you see fit. This basically lets you change the move set for any weapon. I never really experimented with this and while I may have “missed out”, I was able to beat the game perfectly fine without it. At a certain point, the number of options is so overwhelming that just sitting there and trying out loads of combinations seemed like too burdensome a task. I used four weapons, two of which were boss weapons and therefore uncustomizable. I'm sure there're cool combo options out there, but I didn't care to find them because the Two Dragons Sword kicks too much ass.
There's a weapon durability system that will have your weapon get destroyed and repaired in real time, requiring you to fix it in a boss battle where you're parrying a lot. I guess this is unique, too, but I don't think it's a strong feature. It's cool that it eventually doubles as a way for you to throw fire, lightning, or some similar ability on your weapon once per Stargazer (bonfire) visit. The customizable Wishing Stone offers you lots of choices of buffs, but half of them are worthless and they're pretty expensive to replace, making you less likely to even use the good ones for fear of “wasting” them.

The world of Krat is a pretty one, even if the amount of texture pop-in in this game is wild. Pinocchio's story is somewhat compelling and interesting, offering a more clear plot than something like Dark Souls and even does a great kindness to players by showing them the characters who have something new to say and where they are. The enemy variety is pretty good, with infected humans and crazed puppets at least having enough visual changes to keep new areas feeling fresh.

Overall, I had a really good time with Lies of P. It took me about 30 hours to beat it, and I'll admit I think the last couple hours were probably the worst stretch of it. By that point, I was simply ready for it to be over and the last area you're in is the least visually interesting and its looping, operatic background song is pretty grating. Still, it's only “bad” comparatively, I don't think it's horribly offensive or anything.
If this is the first entry in a series, as the last cutscene implies, I think it is a very strong start and I hope things only get better.

I recommend Lies of P.

It's now 7am and I just got the final Guild Card achievement, 1 hour after defeating the post game final boss, having stayed up 25 hours doing nothing but playing this game.

I was going to write a tl;drish review for it like I did for EO1HD and 2HD, but I honestly think I can't fully express what this game means to me, no matter what I say. This will forever be my favorite game of all time. No other game can make me stay up till the ass crack of the morning after working a full 9-5 the day prior, except EO3.

The same excitement exploring all 6 strata, the same joy that comes from kicking back and listening to some of Yuzo Koshiro's best compositions, the same overwhelming-yet-fulfilling sensation from trying all sorts of stupid party comps thanks to the subclass system, each and every time I play it.

Come hell or high water, Armoroad will always be there for me.