I would describe Lies Of P as “serendipity”, a “happy accident” - and by that I mean Lies Of P and its success as a Soulslike are almost certainly an accident.
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I have been annoyed at Lies Of P’s choice of source material for a long time. I think theres 2 reasons for this when I reflect on why:
1. On the face of it, I find any media trying to intellectualize Pinocchio as a bit pretentious and maybe even facile. “What It Means To Be Human” is a theme that has been run into the ground in 40 different directions, especially in gaming where most designers are fixated on choice.
2. In the background, the Soulslike genre has been struggling greatly in trying to measure up to Fromsofts Souls output, and it felt incredibly frustrating that Lies Of P might have been sabotaging its chances at being compelling by focusing on something gimmicky.
Fortunately, Lies Of P has managed to be a very engaging Soulslike, but I also feel like Lies Of P definitely did as much as they could to jeopardize that outcome. In fact, it sometimes feels like Lies Of P is a bit of a clustered mess that manages to work together by sheer luck.
Some questions to ponder: why are puppets fighting like samurai, with intense sword counterplay? What does lying have to do with difficult combat? Why pair deflection-centric combat (aggressive-leaning) with a need to constantly sharpen your weapon (passive-leaning)? Other things are also just very unrelated: so many of the NPCs have 5 minute long disposable feeling “questlines”. Theres like 20 different sub-systems (you likely will not use). Ultimately the antagonistic force is something not even related to Carlo Collidis story and it often (often) made me wonder why they didnt just write something completely original. Why the hell does Gold Coin Fruit work the way it does??? Even when it comes to lying, the game often uses “lie” as a surrogate for the good guy or bad buy answer, why is lying so inconsequential and thoughtless when the game is called Lies Of P?
For the record, these arent things you can levy against Fromsoft. Everything in Sekiro supports the speed of the gameplay. The aggression in Bloodborne is supported by the fact youre a “Hunter”. What the hell do you “stalk” in Lies Of P??
Soulslikes tend to commit a grave mistake: they overcomplicate themselves. I can only guess why they do this, maybe they feel like they need to “innovate” on the formula but the issue tends to be that they dont even understand the formula at default. From where Im standing, Lies Of P didnt really avoid this - it throws just as much stuff at the wall to see what sticks, stuff that doesnt necessarily pair well or harmonize with each other either.
So then how does Lies Of P manage to be so good?
Im gonna be honest: I think its almost exclusively because of the boss design (and maybe by extension, the miniboss design). I think by doing that part right, all the dumb stuff on top of it doesnt matter quite as much. Neowiz deserves all the credit there, without attention paid to that singular aspect, Lies Of P would end up discarded on the pile of middling Soulslikes just like its contemporaries. They got the important thing right and it does alot of work for them. I love boss fights, I probably derive alot (maybe even most) of my enjoyment of Lies Of P from them. Theyre very good, and they elevate all the parts of the game surrounding them.
However Im not content with this, cuz this kind of feels like rewarding bad habits. The bloat and lack of focus arent good things. The Pinocchio thing wasnt a benefit, the liability to the work never seems to be truly offset. I think if Neowiz understood what they were doing when they got The Good Thing right, that that understanding would extend to other aspects of the game - which suggests to me that they didnt understand it very well. It seems likely to me that Lies Of P might be good by mistake, that what they got right might not have been entirely on purpose.
That would be an ill omen. How can I expect anything of Neowiz’s future output when I cant even be certain theyre looking in the right places? It certainly reinforces all the wrong lessons to other devs observing Lies Of P’s success. And this would be immensely frustrating to me, cuz its been so hard to finally get the ball rolling on non-Fromsoft contributions to the genre.
It would be a shame if the first engrossing Soulslike in a long time was just serendipity. Just a happy accident.
v
v
v
v
v
I have been annoyed at Lies Of P’s choice of source material for a long time. I think theres 2 reasons for this when I reflect on why:
1. On the face of it, I find any media trying to intellectualize Pinocchio as a bit pretentious and maybe even facile. “What It Means To Be Human” is a theme that has been run into the ground in 40 different directions, especially in gaming where most designers are fixated on choice.
2. In the background, the Soulslike genre has been struggling greatly in trying to measure up to Fromsofts Souls output, and it felt incredibly frustrating that Lies Of P might have been sabotaging its chances at being compelling by focusing on something gimmicky.
Fortunately, Lies Of P has managed to be a very engaging Soulslike, but I also feel like Lies Of P definitely did as much as they could to jeopardize that outcome. In fact, it sometimes feels like Lies Of P is a bit of a clustered mess that manages to work together by sheer luck.
Some questions to ponder: why are puppets fighting like samurai, with intense sword counterplay? What does lying have to do with difficult combat? Why pair deflection-centric combat (aggressive-leaning) with a need to constantly sharpen your weapon (passive-leaning)? Other things are also just very unrelated: so many of the NPCs have 5 minute long disposable feeling “questlines”. Theres like 20 different sub-systems (you likely will not use). Ultimately the antagonistic force is something not even related to Carlo Collidis story and it often (often) made me wonder why they didnt just write something completely original. Why the hell does Gold Coin Fruit work the way it does??? Even when it comes to lying, the game often uses “lie” as a surrogate for the good guy or bad buy answer, why is lying so inconsequential and thoughtless when the game is called Lies Of P?
For the record, these arent things you can levy against Fromsoft. Everything in Sekiro supports the speed of the gameplay. The aggression in Bloodborne is supported by the fact youre a “Hunter”. What the hell do you “stalk” in Lies Of P??
Soulslikes tend to commit a grave mistake: they overcomplicate themselves. I can only guess why they do this, maybe they feel like they need to “innovate” on the formula but the issue tends to be that they dont even understand the formula at default. From where Im standing, Lies Of P didnt really avoid this - it throws just as much stuff at the wall to see what sticks, stuff that doesnt necessarily pair well or harmonize with each other either.
So then how does Lies Of P manage to be so good?
Im gonna be honest: I think its almost exclusively because of the boss design (and maybe by extension, the miniboss design). I think by doing that part right, all the dumb stuff on top of it doesnt matter quite as much. Neowiz deserves all the credit there, without attention paid to that singular aspect, Lies Of P would end up discarded on the pile of middling Soulslikes just like its contemporaries. They got the important thing right and it does alot of work for them. I love boss fights, I probably derive alot (maybe even most) of my enjoyment of Lies Of P from them. Theyre very good, and they elevate all the parts of the game surrounding them.
However Im not content with this, cuz this kind of feels like rewarding bad habits. The bloat and lack of focus arent good things. The Pinocchio thing wasnt a benefit, the liability to the work never seems to be truly offset. I think if Neowiz understood what they were doing when they got The Good Thing right, that that understanding would extend to other aspects of the game - which suggests to me that they didnt understand it very well. It seems likely to me that Lies Of P might be good by mistake, that what they got right might not have been entirely on purpose.
That would be an ill omen. How can I expect anything of Neowiz’s future output when I cant even be certain theyre looking in the right places? It certainly reinforces all the wrong lessons to other devs observing Lies Of P’s success. And this would be immensely frustrating to me, cuz its been so hard to finally get the ball rolling on non-Fromsoft contributions to the genre.
It would be a shame if the first engrossing Soulslike in a long time was just serendipity. Just a happy accident.
_YALP
5 months ago
I compare this game alot to Thymesia (the previous Best Soulslike) in my mind as they share alot in common. General setting/ Bloodborne inspirations, deflection focused combat, and even orbit around concepts of Alchemy and corruption and all that (they even both have clowns). Lies Of P obviously has a greater budget and therefore a higher quantity of high quality bosses - but Thymesia is a much tighter and considerate experience.
And even tho I value Lies Of P's big boss battles a great deal, I find that I still regard Thymesia way more favorably, even when Thymesia lacks some level and enemy variety (Lies Of P isnt innocent there either tbh) and resorts to the dreaded Gimmick Boss a few times. Its difficult to understate how much I think being a Pinocchio story really just alienates the experience of Lies Of P.